Fifty Shades of Grey: Rewritten
by Inks Inc
Summary: Mr Grey will see you now. He will also save your life.
1. Chapter 1

"Ros, I have better things to do than to meet a bunch of college kids that won't last five minutes here."

His long-suffering second-in-command pursed her lips disapprovingly. The only person in his employ who would ever dare to do something so bold in his presence.

"These are the best and the brightest interns from the Seattle U class of twenty-eleven. You said it yourself, you want your workforce young and hungry. They're young and they're hungry. It will take you three minutes to impart some wisdom, put a face to the corporate name and then we can move on. These people need to know what success looks like, walks like. Alright?"

He grumbled incoherently under his breath, staring icily out the windows of his ostentatious office.

"Excellent," she breezed, "The meeting is scheduled to take place in Conference Room A in five minutes."

With that, she was gone. He stared after her resentfully. He'd had a shit night and his mood was souring further by the minute. His latest sub, Rachel, had abruptly ended their arrangement last night. She wanted the whole package and he was still offering only what he was offering, the partial package. The familiar sense of edginess and unease that preceded a sub leaving his service, whether their choice or his own, was in full swing. She'd been good, too, Rachel. Demure, intelligent. Slim, strong. Obedient, willing. She'd been able to take more than anyone before her and as he sat broodingly, he knew his appetite would now take more and more to appease. He glanced reluctantly at his watch.

Ros would be back and baying for his blood if he were late.

With a sigh, he roused himself. His subtly expensive suit folded where it ought to fold, accentuating the defined lines of his torso, the broad expanse of his shoulders. The usual looks of surreptitious lust from nameless, faceless employees followed him down the glass panelled walls as he strode forcefully along. His own aesthetic blessings made him twinge with unease. His classical looks were like a beautiful portrait hanging deceptively over a mould-spore ridden wall. Skin depth beauty hiding a soul deep putridity.

They rose like a collective jack-in-the-box when he entered.

Sweeping to the head of the table, he nodded curtly and all fourteen assembled soon-to-be college grads seated themselves nervously. With only mere years separating them in age from the public magnate, he was a foreboding force. Fixing the lapels of his suit jacket so that they were just so, he finally looked around at them all with an expressionless face and barely hid a sigh. They were eager. So eager they could barely sit still. The men were dressed in suits that told him they weren't from money and the women were polished, but self-conscious. He drummed his fingers lazily on the table and tried to think of something wise and empowering to say. Which wasn't that easy when he currently couldn't give two shits about anything that wasn't finding a new sub, a new outlet. Feeling a stern look from Ros boring into his neck, he supposed he best get on with it. He opened his mouth, but that was as far as he got.

All sixteen sets of eyes snapped to the glass door as it was jerkily thrown open, careering back off the wall.

She was a tangle of limbs and folders. Flustered and frantic. Long and shiny hair, honeyed mahogany, fell around her slim, defined face. Which was currently on fire. Nobody in the room had ever seen anyone blush so violently, they were quite sure. The girl looked up like a deer-in-the-headlights and swallowed nervously, clearly wishing the ground would open and gobble her whole. Ros frowned disapprovingly and rose, arching a brow and checked her ever-present clipboard for the name and photo of this moronically late, late comer.

"Miss Steele, this meeting began two minutes ago. Please find your seat without further disruption."

A few sly smiles were exchanged amongst the rest of the interns. At least they had managed to turn up on time, to a meeting with the damned company president himself. Surely that was a plus given that apparently some people couldn't get their shit together even if it were to impress Seattle's most enviable young entrepreneur. The flushing Miss Steele muttered her effusive apologies and looked around the room for her seat. She felt faint. The only seat remaining, carefully passed up by the others, was the chair to the extreme right of whom she knew on sight to be the Mr Grey everyone whispered about. He was appraising her quietly, oddly coloured eyes drinking her in over interlocked fingers. Stumbling and trying to ignore the muffled giggles that ensued, she awkwardly made her way to and collapsed into her seat.

Ros shook her head subtly.

Imbecile.

"Please continue, Mr Grey," she murmured.

He could smell her.

A subtle, clean scent. It wafted over him as she sat in an ungraceful heap. He could practically feel the heat radiating from her face. She stared down at the table, gnawing her bottom lip with straight and perfectly white teeth. Something inside him stirred, awakened. She was beautiful. Dressed plainly and almost dowdily, but beautiful nonetheless. There was something…innocent, about her. Not an immaturity as such, he mused, but some form of naivety hung over her. Suddenly feeling all eyes but hers on him, he opened his mouth and issued a simple, short speech that impressed the benefits of hard work and good intuition and the boundless opportunities Grey Enterprise Holdings had to offer in return. They listened with rapt attention, staring at him with an almost indecent attention. Not her though. One quick glance to his right-hand side saw her still staring steadily at the table, her cheeks still resolutely a-flame.

The meeting broke up on a platitude he managed to fabricate and Ros herded the interns up and out.

Attempting to follow his seasoned VP down the corridor, the college students bottlenecked at the door and even though she had practically bolted for it, Miss Steele as he now knew her, was jostled to the back of the queue. Still seated at the head of the table, he watched her hungrily. The Dom in him was rustling, rattling at the bars of the cage he was stuffed into during the working day. She was non-confrontational, non-assertive. Easily embarrassed and had all the coordination of an amputee baby goat. She was nervous. Almost twitchily so. His eyes narrowed as she allowed herself to be pushed back by a confidant platinum blonde, muttering an apology that she should have been receiving.

The Dom in him shook the bars of his cage angrily, pointing vigorously at the door.

Screaming at him.

"Miss Steele," he said quietly, "A moment of your time please."

She spasmed. He stifled an uncharacteristic laugh. The last of the interns had just left the room when he had called to her. She was alone. Utterly alone. He pointed with a delicate hand to the seat she had just vacated and waited pointedly. She swallowed, the blush that had just begun to subside returning in full force. She moved awkwardly, stiffly. When she sat he saw that her fingers were shaking. He found that interesting and the corners of his mouth crooked up. He strove to choose his words quietly, but she beat him the punch.

"Am I in trouble, Mr Grey?" she blurted, her voice pleasing to him. "For being late?"

The Dom in him trembled with anticipation.

"It's just, I got lost," she babbled, "It's so big here. There's so many floors and levels and _glass._ I just…" she trailed off, embarrassed by her gurgling diction. "I apologise," she said quietly. "I assure you I am usually a very punctual person and this will never happen again." She folded her hands neatly in her lap and looked down at the table she had been studying so intently, gnawing her bottom lip once again.

The bars of the Dom cage were beginning to cave under the pressure.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

There was something intoxicating about this girl. The thoughts that were flooding his mind were unclean, even for him. It was that _lip._ The way she chewed her bottom lip. It did something to him. The ready blush of her cheeks did nothing to control his visions as he imagined a different set of cheeks sporting that blood-red quality. She was looking at him now. Nervously peeking at him through thick and dark eyelashes. She was waiting for her fate, he realised. She thought he was going to kick her off the programme. He allowed himself a small smirk. He didn't want to get rid of this one. Far from it. He wanted her close. He wanted her closer than close.

"What do you think, Miss Steele?" he countered, "Do you think that you should be? In trouble?"

She blinked innocently up at him and a surge of blood trundled into his length. He was seized with the desire to…he swallowed. He was getting carried away. He oughtn't to toy with the poor girl like he was. She was clearly petrified. But he couldn't help it. He watched her carefully, gauging her reaction. She moved her plump lips wordlessly as if trying to figure out a complicated math problem. He kept his gaze trained on her, knowing it was making her uncomfortable. He enjoyed her discomfort. Revelled it. It turned him on. Rachel had left him in the middle of a scene, she had left him starving. They had parted on amicable terms, sure, but unfulfilled terms nonetheless and he was burning with need.

He tilted his head as he studied her. God, she looked like a fucking girl-scout. Radiating purity.

She was probably in a church choir and donated money to a puppy charity.

Not his usual type.

"I don't know," she all but whispered, "Please, Mr Grey…I can't lose this internship."

How he would love to fuck that sweet little mouth.

He raised a perfect brow and grinned internally when he saw her pupils widen, an involuntary reflex.

She was attracted. The pretty portrait hanging over the cesspool of darkness never failed to enamour the unwitting and the unknowing. Of that much, he was sure.

"You don't know?" he mused. "You arrive to my briefing late and unprepared and you don't know?" He rubbed a hand through his tousled hair and watched her lips part in the middle with satisfaction. "I am a very busy man, Miss Steele. A very busy and successful man. I am not accustomed to my very own interns thinking that my time is beneath theirs." He shook his head, savouring the pulsating tingling in his groin at her look of mortified horror. "I am not used to that at all, I'm afraid."

She flushed even more furiously, wishing she had Kate's charming tongue and oozing confidence.

"I'm sorry, Mr Grey," she said in a sotto voice that enticed and ensnared him, "It won't happen again."

The Dom in him danced his happy dance as thoughts of pure filth filled his cage.

"You say you cannot lose this internship," he countered carefully, "Why is that?"

She was thrown by the question but to her credit, her intelligence overrode her awkwardness.

"I got to college on scholarship. My financial aid stops the minute I graduate. I've worked part-time as a waitress to make ends meet but not enough to have a savings stash. This internship is my springboard into working life."

That surprised him but he didn't show it.

"Your parents don't help you financially?"

Her brow knitted together.

"With all due respect, Mr Grey, that is rather a personal question that I'd rather not have to answer."

His Dom faltered, thrown by this sudden streak of feisty and clipped confidence.

All in all, it pleased him.

He inclined his head gracefully.

"Of course, that is your prerogative. I was merely trying to assess whether you are hungry enough to be in my employ. I expect my people to give more than can ever be reasonably be expected, every single day. I don't employ people who aren't committed to what I am trying to do, trying to create. My business is more than my livelihood, it is a reflection of me. I will not have anything or anybody, diminish that reflection." His mouth twitched at the consternation splaying across her face. In actuality, he couldn't give a flying shit if she had turned up hours or days late. He just enjoyed toying with her, exerting his implicit power over her, watching her squirm.

And blush.

He never knew a blush could be so godamned endearing.

He never knew he could find anything about anyone _endearing._

"I'm dedicated to being here," she said quietly, "I've done my best to make a new life in Seattle. I'd like to continue building upon it."

His curiously piqued.

"Make a new life? Is there an old one you're trying to forget?"

She gaped at his arrogance. His supreme arrogance. Who was he to interrogate her like this? About her personal life. About the most personal aspects of her personal life. She shook her head, her embarrassed flush beginning to tinge with righteous indignation. Her back straightened somewhat as she cleared her throat.

"That's another personal question, Mr Grey. I'm afraid I'm going to invoke that prerogative again"

He grinned then, and it took her godamned breath away. His face lit up, his eyes twinkled. He looked his twenty-seven years and he radiated with an energy that suddenly consumed her. A careless shrug of his defined shoulders offset the boyish charm and he leaned forward, invading her space, speaking conspiratorially.

"Maybe so. But I am a man who gets what he wants, Miss Steele. In all things. At all times."

She stared back, an odd and previously unexperienced feeling of desire surging through her veins.

"What happens when you don't get what you want?"

The grin was back. The grey pools seeming to quiver with a private joke that only he understood.

"Oh, Miss Steele, there are some things I've yet to experience. That scenario would be one of them."

….

A/N: Hi guys! This one is unconnected to _Forever, Grey_ (updated that one yesterday and will again, soon) and there will be divergence from canon. I've been bitten hard by the 50 shades bug once again and so, here we go!

Inks x

…


	2. Chapter 2

"Mr Grey? Your teleconference with Cairo is waiting."

Ros' professional voice broke the spell. He leaned back from his newest prey, a smirk playing about his lips. Smoothing down his tie, he gave his second-in-command a curt nod and stood. To the backdrop of her retreating back and concealed, wildly rolling eyes, he stared down at a deer-in-the-headlights Anastasia. God, she had a nice fucking mouth. Ripping his thoughts away from all the things he'd like to do with said mouth, he cleared his throat.

"Miss Steele. It was a pleasure meeting you."

Recognising her cue, she sprang to her feet. Sprang too fast. She stumbled. His hands shot out to steady her. The moment he laid his touch on her an exhilaration burned him. An electrical current. A red fire of shame swept across her cheeks as she murmured her thanks, embarrassment engulfing her. She may as well bow out now and take to writing a book about how _not_ to impress your boss on your first day.

"And you, Mr Grey," she murmured, dripping with her mortification.

He regarded her amusedly.

"Do you always blush this much? Or do you have a blood pressure issue?"

She gaped at him. Plump, pink lips dropping open to reveal even, white teeth. She blushed even more furiously. His amusement grew. As the temperature in her cheeks reached boiling point, she managed to find the spark of indignation at being treated as a comedy-show she wasn't invited to. The grinning humour, at her expense, that he wasn't even bothering to hide tipped her over the edge.

"Do you always derive pleasure from making your employees uncomfortable? Or is this a _me_ issue?"

Her sudden switch from blushing violet to sass and wit only served to amuse him further. A well-defined brow was arched as his Dom screamed around his cage, rattling the bars of polite society that kept him concealed. She was more than she seemed, this Miss Steele. She swung from mild-mannered and almost meek to strong-willed and smart-mouthed like a pendulum under the right provocation. His eyes trailed over her defined cheek bones, her petite frame and thought of all the provocation he could offer.

She was currently swinging back to mild-mannered Anastasia, clearly horrified by what she'd just said.

"I'm making you uncomfortable?" he asked softly, "How so?"

She opened her mouth tentatively, but she was to her mercy, interrupted.

"Mr Grey," Ros boomed, "Cairo are going to disconnect in sixty seconds if you do not take your part in your office now. We have waited and pandered for three months to get this sit down. Please, you have to take that call right this minute or your entire development plan will be dead in the water."

Ana was far from gay, but she could have kissed the stylish and stealthy woman then and there.

Christian however, let out a small sigh and spoke through gritted teeth.

"I'm coming. Wait in my office for me."

The sound track of her exasperated heels clattered down the hallway once more as Ana let out a breath she hadn't realised she was holding. He considered her once more, tilting his head to the side like a wolf selecting a kill. There was something about this one. An invisible pull. He wanted her. He could have taken there and then with half the chance and her inclination. But she was difficult to read, this Miss Steele. She didn't simper like most women around him. She didn't trill and titter. She didn't gaze at him with that stupid fucking glassy eyed look. She had a strange combination of demureness and sassiness in her. In fact, she gave as good as she got.

Albeit with a blush.

That fucking blush.

"Saved by the bell, Miss Steele," he murmured, "For now."

She stared at him, transfixed by this man with the unusual eyes and the cryptic tongue. Only six years her senior, he vibrated with a worldly knowledge that she conspicuously lacked. His public face, extravagant wealth and inherent confidence made her feel small, awkward. Well, more awkward than usual. That would be bad enough on its own. But his strange smirks, his coy words…they were making things a hell of a lot harder. Harder to ignore the mounting pressure that was building within her. The rollercoaster that was spinning in her stomach. Never one to notice men before, she found the pangs of longing alien, strange. She spoke quietly, her eyes dropping to the floor.

"I should let you get back to work. Thank you for your time, Mr Grey."

He grinned, enjoying yet another little private joke.

"Let me? Are you giving me your permission to return to the running of my own company, Miss Steele?"

She blanched, turning to stark white from fire engine red in a split second.

"What?" she blurted, "No, Mr Grey, that's not what I…I mean…what I was saying-"

"I would like to have a meal with you, Miss Steele."

"I was just trying to say that I've taken up enough of your time and…uhm, what?"

Imagining her splayed in his playroom, his words were laden with a lust she couldn't possibly understand.

"A meal. Food. Dinner. Whatever you like to call it. I'd like you to join me."

Her mouth swung open like a jack-in-the-box. She looked around the room for vantage spots concealing hidden cameras. The flush returned to her face full-force as she stood uncertainly, feeling increasingly wrongfooted. People like her didn't get asked to dinner with people like him. The ugly duckling tale only ended well in fantasy land. She felt her pupils dilate as she looked at him, looking at her with an odd expression splayed across his face. He was beautiful, but he was terrifying. There was something about him that scared her, that warned her off. She swallowed.

He felt his phone shiver in his pocket, knowing Ros was tearing her hair out.

"I see you need some time to consider," he mused, "And I do need to tend to business."

He drank her in for another moment, relishing her squirming shock. It was like a drug, her discomfort.

"I'll be in contact, Miss Steele. Until then," he stepped closer to her, purposely invading her personal space, breathing her in. "Don't ever turn up late to a meeting with me again. I dislike tardiness in any shape or form. Causes nothing but trouble for all concerned. Don't you agree?"

He crossed the room and lingered in the doorway for a moment, glancing back at her with those weirdly captivating eyes before sweeping from the room with commanding strides, her wide eyes following him every step of the way. His parting comment ringing in her ears as something inside her bubbled to the surface, spilling over with a small gasp pushing past her teeth.

"You wouldn't want to get into trouble with the boss now, would you?"

….

TBC

…


	3. Chapter 3

Watching his retreating back, her lips were peeled apart with shock. Her heart was hammering. Lust boiled inside her. He walked with a confidence that was too classy to be a swagger. He commanded the very surrounds he belonged to. As he rounded the corner and out of sight, the spell broke. She could breathe again. She looked down at the table and breathed deeply. Cursing herself. She could not embroil herself in any situation like this. Not again. Not after she'd worked so hard to escape. Her career. That was the only important thing now.

The only safe thing.

He was not a safe thing.

Christian Grey was about as far from safe as one man could be.

He was a fucking _Dom._

The argument could be made for assuming him a Master, but all in all, he wasn't quite that type.

He was a Dom. She knew it as sure as she knew her own name. Her real name. Not this new name, this Anastasia bullshit. She splayed her slim flingers out on the table before her. Grounding herself in the simple feel of the smooth wood. She knew she was right. She knew what he was the moment he had called her back. The second she had considered his eyes. Those weird but beautiful eyes. Oh, she had played dumb. Of course she had. He had left thinking her a pure little snowflake. A precious little thing. She had perfected that image. That armour. It was all that kept her safe now. Safe from him, safe from herself.

Her eyes studied her neatly polished fingers and she groaned lowly, distress engulfing her.

Of all the jobs and all the companies, she had to go and pick one spearheaded by a wolf in sheep's clothing. Because that's what he was. Christian. Mr Grey. He saw her as the weakest of the litter, he had separated her from the intern pack. Cornered her. Got her alone. Appraised her. It had taken everything she had to put on her doe eyes, fidget in all the right places. Her blush came naturally. She couldn't control that. Couldn't supress it like she could everything else. The corners of her mouth crooked. Who would have thought it? Seattle's most lusted after bachelor, considered the all-American boy done good, was just another sexual deviant. She wondered idly what he was into. The expanse of his predilections.

Fuck, he was breathtaking.

In another world, in another time…

She roused herself from her seat and smoothed down her hideously dowdy dress. She hadn't been lying when she told him she needed this job. She did. It was the key to her new life. Her escape. The sustaining of her new life in Seattle. The burying of her old life in Boston. Allowing herself to be the boss' new plaything, his new fuck buddy, would only put that key in jeopardy. She wasn't prepared to do that. No matter how mind numbingly attractive he was. No matter how pleasant his voice washing over her was. No matter how good a lay she knew he would be.

It just wasn't worth it.

Besides, her scars were far from healed.

They weren't even scabbing over yet. They were raw. Present. Physically and physiologically.

So what was she going to do about his very unusual dinner invitation?

She smiled wryly as she left the room and set off down the halls, looking for the rest of her fresh-faced colleagues. Dinner invitation indeed. He no more wanted to sit down to a civilised meal with her than Hannibal Lecter would have. He wanted to study her. Examine her. Ponder her suitability for whatever was going through his delightfully fucked-up mind. If it was anything like what was going through hers, her only regret was that she couldn't accept whatever proposal he may offer. No matter how much she might want to. She had to be Anastasia Steele, now. Small town girl in a big city. Just trying to keep up in the rat race like everyone else.

Invisibility was her only defence.

She scolded herself as she walked swiftly on, taking care not to fall on her face. Heels. They weren't her friend. He couldn't find her here. She needed to relax. Else, she would draw attention to herself and attention was the very last thing she needed. She could hear the humdrum of the interns now. They weren't far up ahead. She needed to put Christian Grey out of her mind. But, Mr Grey…he wasn't the easiest thought to dismiss. Did he really need to be so outrageously sensational? His eyes, his voice, his physique. They were a lethal combination. But for her past, littered with memories that plagued her dreams, she would have been defenceless to his charms.

Her past was her only shield. Because she'd been here before.

Because back in Boston, he had been gorgeous. With nice eyes and a kind voice.

Harry, he'd been everything she thought she could ever dream for, perfection in human form.

At the beginning.

In the end, restraining orders in place, he'd been no more than an animal.

And she, his bone. His property. His to do with as he pleased. Regardless of her limits. Regardless of the law. Regardless of any semblance of human compassion or empathy.

She knew she'd never be safe again, not there. Not after leaving him. It had taken all her strength to do it. No girl had ever done it before. Leaving the service of Harry St. James only occurred when Harry St. James damned well decreed it. She had been brainwashed, she knew it. Had stayed far longer than she should have. Had endured things she never should have. But she had broken free, eventually. And that had not gone down well. That had not gone down well at all. He hunted her like a hungry lion. Defied all restraining orders. Had connections that made them meaningless. Eluded justice like an eel. Her only option to escape him and his psychosis had been to flee. To end who she had been, create who she was, and flee.

And so, Harper Marie Wakefield had died.

And Anastasia Rose Steele had been born.

It had worked, too. She'd been in Seattle for fourteen months now. Transferring into Seattle U for her final year. Legally? No. But one did what one had to do to survive. She had heard nothing from him. No one had warned her of his inquiries into her. After fourteen months, she could finally breathe. He believed the lie. He believed his prized possession, Harper, had perished in that fire. Believed that he had not been defeated, revelled in her death. The humdrum of the interns was louder now. She was about to round the corner to where they gathered, watching some infomercial on life as a Grey Enterprises employee when her cell shrilled. Fishing it out of her pocket, her folders hastily scooped and buried under her arm slipping, she flicked it open.

The files fell to the floor with a dull thunk as she slapped a hand viciously to her mouth to hide her scream.

 ** _Harper,_**

 ** _You really shouldn't accept your new boss' dinner invitation. It would cause me serious displeasure. I don't share my property with anyone. Especially my lost property. You will tell him no. You will do it now. We have much to discuss. I will be seeing you shortly. You will be ready for me. You will not run. If you do, I will find you. Don't be foolish and anger me further my sweet girl. You wouldn't want our special reunion to be ruined, would you?_**

 ** _Sweet dreams Harper, or is it Anastasia now?_**

 ** _See you soon, my elusive pet,_**

 ** _Mr St. James._**

Tears of burning, acidic fear popped in her eyes. The copious, long and thin scars her dress was designed to hide seemed to tremble with anticipation.

She leaned back against the wall, panic immobilising her, an unnatural rhythm beating in her heart.

It was over.

He had found her.

….

TBC

….


	4. Chapter 4

Her legs trembled. Her brow burst open with perspiration. She blinked away her tears. The shock was wearing off and sheer survival instincts were kicking in. She had to go. She had to flee. For the second time, she had to leave her life behind her and flee. If he got his hands on her she knew she would never be the same again. Physically or mentally. She screwed her eyes tightly shut and took in a great lungful of air. She had a plan for this scenario. One she had hoped to never use. She ran through the details in her head and stayed her hammering heart.

Time was paramount.

He wouldn't be far way. Wouldn't have given her too much of a head start advantage.

His reach was unparalled. So much so she wasn't even surprised he knew of Mr Grey's invitation.

He was everywhere, he was everyone and he was everything.

That's what made him so mind numbingly terrifying.

Files still splayed on the ground she turned on her heel and barrelled down the corridor. The rabble of the interns growing lesser with every tumbling step. Her ankles twisted painfully in her heels. She ignored it. She had to get home. Get her go-bag and flee. Where to, she didn't know. That was the safest way. If she didn't know herself, she couldn't leave breadcrumbs with her planning. She had cash. Enough to get away and start again. Barely. Her eyes were rooted to the floor as she all but sprinted clumsily along. She barely dodged doors, bookcases and ornaments as she blindly bolted to freedom. Her gate was unbroken until she collided headfirst into something hard. Something tall. Something warm.

She blinked and stumbled backwards, looking dumbly to see what figurine had stopped her in her tracks.

Her barely controlled heart began hammering frantically all over again.

"Miss Steele?"

His voice was low, a confused curiosity dripping from his simple address.

The urge to burst into tears at the self-assured, calmly confident tone was bitingly strong.

"Mr Grey," she mumbled, her face beginning to burn. "I apologise. I didn't see you there. I uhm…I'll be more careful in future." She peeked up at him and felt a strange sensation in the pit of her stomach. She gestured lamely behind him. "I'll just be getting back to work now. My apologies again. I…I'll be going now. I hope I didn't hurt you. Not that you're…anyways, I was just going back to work. Like I said."

His eyes widened fractionally at the stunted, stumbling speech.

Something about the frantic glint in her eye made him glad he'd missed his Cairo call.

"Miss Steele, you appear flustered. Has anything happened to cause you distress since we last spoke?"

Her eyes brimmed with the fear she couldn't supress. Time was ticking. It was ticking fast.

"No, Mr Grey," she practically babbled, "I'm fine. Just need to get back to it. I won't take up anymore of your time. I'll just," she made to dart past him only to have his arm snake out and a gentle, but restraining gip be placed on her forearm. "Be on my way," she finished lamely, closing her eyes at the softness of his touch. It surprised her. His gentleness. She looked away, her dread beginning to physically weigh her down.

"So eager," he murmured, "And yet, you're going in the exact opposite way to which you should be."

His eyes roved over her. Sizing her up, drinking her in.

"Your intern class are scheduled to sit through some awful presentation about the success awaiting them at my company, Miss Steele. You are part of that intern class. I don't recall you being granted any special status that would excuse you from suffering through that tripe like the rest of them. But here you are, running through my halls, in the exact opposite direction of where you should be headed."

His eyes smoked over. Something was wrong. He could feel it. Taste it.

"Explain that to me."

She paled. Swaying slightly on her feet. Heels that weren't designed for someone of her coordination buckling under her gate. He bit back the urge to order her to remove them. To reach out and steady her. She was not his. She not his to touch, or to command. But the fear crackling in her eyes was doing something to him. Something unprecedented. He needed to know what was wrong, because he needed to fix it.

"Please, Mr Grey. I just have to step out for a moment. I-"

"What are you afraid of, Miss Steele? What has happened?"

He tilted his head at her. His eyes narrowed.

"Tell me," he commanded and she flinched under the weight of his authority. "Tell me," he repeated more softly, checking his tone somewhat. "Perhaps I can be of some assistance. I pride myself on the workforce I command, Miss Steele. Their happiness is their productivity and their productivity is my profitability. Interns are the future of my company. I can see something has happened to upset you. I should like to know what that is. Will you indulge me?"

She shook her head wildly. Every second spent with this enigma of a man was a second closer to danger.

"I don't feel well is all," she lied breathlessly, cheeks flushed. "I just need some air."

He read the dishonesty like the simplest of books.

"Miss Steele, I am not a man who is accustomed to accepting mistruths. Perhaps you'd like to try again?"

She jerked with fear. Fear of what was coming for her. Another minute had trickled by. Wasted.

"Perhaps you'd like to get out of my way?" she snapped, fear making her reckless.

His grey eyes widened with shock. He took a small step back. Scrutinising her with his gaze. She was shaking, her pupils were dilated and her brow was dampened with sweat. She wasn't far off from a panic attack. He swallowed down her impertinence with an ease that surprised him. Assailing her terror was more important to him than commanding his usual reverent respect.

"Miss-"

He swallowed.

"Anastasia. I don't think you understand. I _need_ you tell me what is going on. I must know what has you so frightened?"

The tone of his silky voice was a taunt to her. His aura, a slap in the face. He had the poise of a man who could make anything go away, obliterate any ailment. The need to unburden herself surged within her. She opened her mouth uncertainly before snapping it shut, amazed by her own foolishness. She knew _nothing_ of this man. Only his deviant nature in generality and by instinct. Christ sake, he could be the one who had tipped Harry off about her in the first place. That notion suddenly seized her and she tumbled back from him, her fear magnifying and multiplying like a rampant disease.

It made sense.

It made so much fucking sense.

Explained why a man like that would be interested in a woman like her.

He was feeding information to Harry. Her brow furrowed, her stomach churned. His assistant, Ros something or other, had been hollering about an all-important teleconference from Cairo. And yet here he was, in the halls she just happened to be roaming when he should have been brokering some multi-million-dollar deal. Her lips parted with fear. He had been sent to see where she was. Sent to stop her fleeing. The Dom world was small. It was far from inconceivable that he and Harry would know each other, support each other. Return lost property to one another.

"You and him?" she murmured, panic misting in her words. "You were going to…that's why?"

He stared at her in utter bewilderment.

"What are you talking about? I and who? I was going to what?"

He resisted the urge to seize her by the shoulders and step offensively into her personal space.

"Tell me what you are speaking of," he commanded, not now caring about his tone. "Tell me now."

She flinched. His tone was her affirmation. He was fishing. Prying information for Harry. For Mr St. James. Her eyes flooded with the tears she had been barely blinking back. The hallway behind his auburn covered head glimmered with freedom. She cast one last frightened and betrayed look at him, before kicking off her heels and darting past him, sprinting down the sterile halls. It took him a moment to recover from his shock. His raised and astounded _"Miss Steele,"_ bounced off the walls to no avail. Within another blink, she was gone. Out of sight. Vanished.

The black blemish on the glitteringly white tiles stopped him in his tracks from tearing after her.

Even though he was not the tearing type.

Far fucking from it.

His eyes still burning with confusion, he bent down and scooped up the cell phone she had dropped in her haste. The screen had cracked in the fall, emblazoning her last message on the damaged device. He read without compunction. It was there, after all. And he needed answers. Some kind of answers and he needed them then and there.

His eyes glazed with shock before they stormed into burning pools of rage.

 _ **Harper,**_

 _ **You really shouldn't accept your new boss' dinner invitation. It would cause me serious displeasure. I don't share my property with anyone. Especially my lost property. You will tell him no. You will do it now. We have much to discuss. I will be seeing you shortly. You will be ready for me. You will not run. If you do, I will find you. Don't be foolish and anger me further my sweet girl. You wouldn't want our special reunion to be ruined, would you?**_

 _ **Sweet dreams Harper, or is it Anastasia now?**_

 _ **See you soon, my elusive pet,**_

 _ **Mr St. James.**_

His mouth slackened. His face paled. All bodily functions he was not accustomed to. He read and re-read the message. The information, veiled and cryptic, burning a hole in his mind. His lips mouthed the words silently, the connotations ringing in his ears. He didn't know how long he stood there, smashed phone in hand. All he knew was that suddenly his shock and bewilderment snapped into action and an inexplicable sense of protection.

The sound of his tailored shoes snapped along the tiled floors.

After ten rapid steps, he broke into a jog.

After two or three broad paces, he broke into a sprint.

Fishing his cell out of his pocket as he bolted from his shiny domain, his voice was even and controlled as he spoke. He was being filled a sense of dangerous purpose. He didn't know why he cared. He didn't know why he burned with caring. All he knew was that he had to find her. He had to track her down. Had to come between her and this bastard who caused her to shake like the faintest of leaves. Throwing himself into the back of his ever-ready town car, he clipped out the last of his orders before snarling orders at the back of Taylor's head.

"Ros. Don't you dare fuck me around. Not with this. _Get me her address."_

….

TBC

….


	5. Chapter 5

The voice was almost amused as it slithered out behind him.

"You're too late, Mr Grey. She's gone."

Christian whipped around in shock, his hackles rising. The owner of the voice was exceedingly handsome. Tall and broad. Dressed in faded designer jeans and a plain cashmere sweater that accentuated his toned torso. His hair was a striking blond, parted to accentuate his jutting cheekbones. An aura of money hung about him, both his own and familial wealth. He leant against a dresser, the picture of nonchalance. But for the calculating coldness of his pale blue eyes, he could have pulled it off. He smiled icily at Christian's startled displeasure, waving a cordial hand in greeting.

"Don't feel too bad about it. Harper has an awful habit of cutting and running. It's nothing personal."

The slightly younger man's brows shot up at the delicate, soft voice.

"Harper?" Christian echoed, "Who the fuck is Harper? And who the fuck are _you?_ "

"Of course," Harry murmured, "You know her as Anastasia, don't you? Anastasia Steele? Forgive me. I knew her as Harper. Harper Wakefield. She seems to have reinvented herself here in Seattle. Seems to have concocted a brand-new life. As for myself, excuse my rudeness. I'm Harry St. James. An investment banker from Boston."

Christian's teeth bared in a snarl before he could bite it back.

He had arrived at Anastasia's apartment to find the door utterly ajar, the inner contents ripped apart. The clear trail of someone who had left in a burning hurry. Now, in her bedroom, stood the man who from his limited intelligence, was the reason she had fled. The reason she had trembled with fear. The reason she had tears of terror in her eyes. He moved forwards slowly, a deep and dark rage spreading from his gut to the tips of his fingers.

"And what the hell are you doing here, Harry St. James, an investment banker from Boston?"

Tilting his head at the veiled venom in the short sentence, Harry smiled cruelly.

"Oh I think you know, Christian Grey, tycoon from Seattle. I'm here to reclaim some lost property. We are men of a similar disposition as I'm sure you can sense. So you will understand more than most the lengths a man such as ourselves will go to maximise an investment, realise an asset's fullest potential." He ran a careless hand through his silky hair. "I'm nowhere near done realising Harper's fullest potential, Christian. She's like a defaulted mortgage. Something I need to get back on track. After penalties are applied for non-conformance of course, as I'm sure you'll understand."

His eyes lingered over the burning twenty-seven-year-old.

"I see you understand more than I thought," he murmured, "Why do you shiver with ire, Mr Grey?"

He moved a step closer, his own eyes beginning to shimmer with possessive rage.

"You desire her. You wish to claim her for your own. It's written all over your very pretty face. Understandable, entirely understandable. She's a very special girl. A very disobedient girl, but a special one nonetheless. And if things were different, perhaps I would've loaned her to you. I'm all about sharing, Mr Grey. All about a little give and take. But things are not different and her time away from me has caused much disaccord. I cannot afford to take any further risks. I allowed her much too much freedom in her previous life. It is how she eluded me. I have learned from my mistakes. I will not repeat them."

His eyes glistened with malice as the realisation thundered across Christian's face.

"You have her?" he barked, an unfamiliar fear screaming inside him. "You took her?"

Harry's cruel lips carved into a tight smile.

"I retook her. As is my right. She is mine. Mine and mine alone. So yes, I have her. And I will continue to have her. From this day until the day I tire of her. I must confess that the day I tire of her seems borderline inconceivable. She casts a spell over me, Mr Grey. I am as much her captive as she is mine. From the way your proud, puffed-up little chest heaves, I gather she has cast her spell on you, too?" His white teeth glinted in the shrouded room. "And you who have spent such a little time with her. Her spell is a maturing one. So you can only imagine how I feel, having had the pleasure of her service for such a long time?"

Christian seethed with a spitting anger, moving forwards violently.

Harry held up a commanding hand.

"Think now," he invited almost cordially. "It is clear you have feelings for my property. New feelings perhaps, but I can see they are strong. Growing only stronger. These feelings no doubt transpose into the most noble desire to _protect_ and to _cherish._ If you lay a hand on me, I will not return the favour. I will not lay a hand on you. I will lay hands on her. I will lay hands on her in a way that she doesn't even know to fear." He grinned a demonic grin when Christian instantly took a step back, his grey eyes splintering with a terrible anger, laced with a fear not for himself. "A business man like myself," Harry mocked openly, "An ability to see the big picture. Good. That's good, Christian. That's why I waited for you to show up. I wanted to see the sort of man you are, face-to-face."

He took another step closer, a power radiating from him.

"You ought not to be so predictable. I am a man who wields even more influence than you, Seattle's most lusted after bachelor. I wield it because I keep a low profile. I move in the dark. My people, they move in the darkest of dark. Those people are the reason I know you invited my property out to dinner. Those people are the reason I know you took off running like a knight in shining armour, determined to come to her aid. Those people are the reason I shall know if you do not find yourself another piece of meat to lust after. Your reputation precedes you in our small world. No NDA known to man will stop heartbroken women from opening their mouths, Mr Grey. Your girls idolise you. Truly, they do. I admit mine never have. I am not as…kind to them as you."

He smirked with disdain.

"Find yourself another sub to be kind to. Find yourself another _Anastasia._ Another fabrication, figment of your imagination. You will be much happier for it. Harper is such a complicated girl. She needs the firm hand of a more mature man. I am that man, Mr Grey. And if you value her safety and her well-being enough to run here like a bitch in heat, you will respect that. You will forget all about the fiction that is Miss Steele. If you do not, I will know. I will know and that knowledge will bring nothing but misery to my prized possession."

He threw a soft, well-manicured hand to the door and cocked his head to the side.

"I am going to leave now. I am going to leave and you are going to step aside. I am going to take what is mine and return her to whence she came. You will never see her or I again and you will happily delete this encounter from your memory. I am a despicable man, Mr Grey. But I am a man of my word. You interfere in what is mine and it is not you that shall pay dearly."

Christian paled to an ashen hue not worn since the days of the Crack Whore.

For the first time in his adult life, he felt powerless.

He felt utterly fucking powerless.

For the first time in his adult life, he had to ask.

He was utterly close to fucking begging.

"Let her go," he bit out quietly, conscious that any poorly chosen word could spell danger for Anastasia…Harper, whatever. "Let her go and I will give you anything you want. A sub who does not willingly give you her submission is no sub at all. You will derive no pleasure. As a Dominant, you need consent to-"

Harry grinned a cold grin in interruption.

"But therein lies the source of your confusion," he whispered conspiratorially with a sickening wink. "I am no Dominant, Mr Grey. I'm something much simpler. Something much sicker. I'm the most sadistic sadist you could ever hope to meet."

He strode passed with an ease that startled the young entrepreneur, issuing his parting comment from the corner of his mouth, amusement dripping from his words.

"So the more she refuses me. The more she resists me. The more she resents me, the happier I am."

….

TBC

….


	6. Chapter 6

Harry looked down slowly. Christian's fist balled around the collar of his shirt. His gaze trailed up to his eyes and he shivered with delight at the pain in the oddly coloured irises. The pain of others was his sustenance. Especially their mental anguish. That was always particularly delicious. He cast a lazy eye back down the fist wrinkling his shirt and raised a taunting brow. Before speaking in an equally taunting voice.

"Tell me Mr Grey, do you see Harper anywhere in this apartment?"

He smirked at the increased pressure encasing his jugular.

"Come now," he crooned, "Be a clever boy and use that millionaire brain of yours. I have your precious Anastasia as you think she is. But I do not have her in my pocket or quivering behind my back. Yet, I am confident of her possession. Which means that I do not hold her myself. My people hold her. I believe in giving very firm instructions to my employees, Mr Grey, as you no doubt do yourself. My men are expecting me back, unscathed and," he glanced meaningfully down at the hand clenching his shirt, "Unwrinkled. They know that if this does not happen, then Miss Wakefield or Miss Steele, if you prefer, is to pay the price."

He smiled a sick, cold smile.

"They do not like her as it is, Mr Grey. They have had to suffer my self-confessed mood swings since she ran away from me. See, when she was there, they were safe from my more mercurial days. She was my outlet. When she left, they were my outlet. They are not going to see me harmed or hindered in my reclaiming of her, Mr Grey. Not without her becoming _their_ outlet."

As if burned, Christian suddenly released the creature in front him with a heaving chest.

"You sick son of a bitch," he spat. "And in your fucked-up little plan, what's to stop me from calling the police? You've just fucking confessed to kidnapping a young woman. You think that's ok because you're a meaningless little investment banker? You think they're just going to say best wishes and wave you on your way. You could do hard time for this you simple little bastard. And if it's the last thing I do, you _will._ I am not the kind of man you want to cross. If there's one thing I can promise you, it is that. I will destroy you. I will destroy you and anyone connected to you. _"_

Harry grinned, savouring every last syllable of the poorly concealed fear. Not for himself, but for her.

"My my, Mr Grey. You are a _very_ passionate employer. Harper must have made quite the impression on you in the few hours that you have known her. She does that. I understand that. She makes you feel like there's no other woman like her, like you've known her all your life. When in reality, she's just another filthy little whore who needs a man like us to save her from herself."

Snarling, Christian held back his fist with a difficulty that almost strangled him.

"Let me make one thing crystal clear. We are nothing alike. We have no common interests or traits. I've always thought myself sick and screwed-up. My whole life, I've thought I was an abomination dressed up like an inspiration. But compared to you? I'm a fucking choir-boy. I'm next in line for the Nobel peace prize compared to a twisted, demented psychopath like you."

Harry chuckled, an icy reverberation that send slippery shivers down Christian's spine.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Mr Grey. Whatever helps you sleep at night." He threw a mockingly polite hand to the mouth of Anastasia's door. "Now, like I said, I have a schedule to keep. If I don't return in the next half an hour, well," his mouth contorted into a cruel line, "I wouldn't like to imagine the pain our Miss Steele nee Wakefield will be in. I'm all about delegation, but I prefer to keep my little whore in line with my own means. I'm sure you understand."

He smirked. The entire conversation to him, nothing more than a sumptuous meal.

"Good day, Mr Grey."

He moved to side step the magnate. The moment seemed to hover in nothingness as Christian stood in a vacuum of conflicted torment. The moment snapped. Instinct won out over intellect. Harry gasped as he was suddenly seized by the throat and slammed with a rib-crunching force against the nearby wall. Framed photographs of far-off landscapes fell off the wall, landing and smashing with a splintering crash. Crunching a step closer, a mask of terrible anger coated the handsome face. He increased his pressure on Harry's throat, his natural athleticism and rigorous exercise regimen placing him at a distinct advantage.

"Change of plans, Mr St. James. You're not going anywhere."

Whilst the banker spluttered for breath, utterly powerless against the vice like grip against his throat Christian reached into his pocket. Still pinning the banker against the wall with a supreme ease, he barked orders down the line before replacing his phone and using the same hand to increase the pressure to Harry's throat. The twisted son-of-a-bitch was well built and strong but he'd been born into privilege and wealth, never having to fight for his life or leisure. Christian, who had been fighting the odds against his very life since birth, was always going to come out on top.

Taylor burst into the room a moment later.

His eyes roved around the surrounds. Assessing the situation. Anyone else would have been stunned, shocked. Asked ten thousand and one questions. But Jason Taylor, having been in the employ of the enigma that was Christian Grey for as long as he had, knew to keep things short, simple and sweet.

"Sir?"

"Taylor," Christian said calmly, a sense of purpose beginning to fill him. "The piece of scum against this wall is a very real threat to a new employee of mine. A young intern. He is currently employing men to hold this woman against her will with the intention of taking her to Boston and inflicting untold pain upon her. The men holding her are expecting this creature to return to them in a half-an-hour in the same condition in which he left, or the intern will pay the price. I would like your assistance in securing his change-of-heart. Do you think that sounds like something you could so?"

Jason eyed the man who was turning puce from lack of oxygen with emotionless eyes.

"Yes Sir."

Christian released his grasp and Harry slumped down against the wall, clutching his throat.

"Excellent. I will allow you get started. I need to make some calls and then I will be right back." He looked to one of his most trusted employees. Someone he almost considered a friend, if he knew how to have those. "You have my permission to use whatever means and force you deem necessary. Do not worry about legal repercussions or anything of that nature. I will handle it. Do you understand?"

Jason nodded without any hesitation or questions and Christian made a mental note to substantially raise his pay.

"Yes Sir."

For the first time in the entirety of his employment, Jason was shocked at his boss' parting words.

"Thank you."

When the door swung shut, leaving he and the puce man alone, Taylor whistled lowly and raised a brow at his new project, assessing his weakest points.

"This girl must be one hell of an intern."

As the sounds of grunting wafted out through the door, Christian strode out of the apartment, flew down several stair cases, to emerge on the bustling street in search of air. Gulping down several mouthfuls, he ran a hand through his hair and tried to think clearly. He didn't know how the girl had such a spell on him. The cretin was right about one thing. He _had_ only known her for a few hours and yet he was willing to move heaven and earth for her safe return to him. He had met countless, nameless and faceless interns. He didn't care about any of them, other than what they could offer him as their boss. But she…was different. A heathy man would say he was enamoured by her.

He would say he was ensnared by her.

The phone connected.

"Ros. I need you to get me everything you can on a Harry St. James out of Boston. An investment banker. I want everything from the moment he took his first breath to today. Everything. If he had diarrhoea in the third grade, I want to know about it. In no more than an hour. I don't want to hear about anything else from anyone else until I have that information. I also want our lawyers on alert in case I should need them. They are to be available at the drop of a hat upon any call I may make. Do you understand?"

Ros, like Taylor, knew better than to ask questions.

"Yes, Mr Grey."

He made a mental note to also increase her salary. For all his rigidity and fuckery, he had some good people around him. Also like Taylor, Ros experienced a rare bout of shock as the call ended with a once-in-a-lifetime adieu.

"Thank you."

Blinking in her glass-panelled office, she blinked and spoke in a murmur to himself.

"This has something to do with that intern or my name isn't Ros Bailey."

Out on the street, Christian breathed deeply and thought at a pace that would make most men woozy. Boston…Boston, did he know anyone in or out of Boston? Women ogled him as they passed as they always did, and he ignored them as he always had. He chewed his lip. A lightbulb moment struck him. She hadn't been his for long. Oddly enough, she had been too hardcore for even his proclivities. They had parted on good terms. Grace. Grace had worked in Boston for years before she had made the move to Seattle. He glanced down at his phone. It had been years, but perhaps she had the same number. He sifted through the hundreds of contacts before finding it, listening to the dial tone with an unusually thundering heart.

"Hello?"

He closed his eyes. It was her.

"Grace. It's Christian Grey."

"Yes," she murmured with amusement, "The magic brick in my hand said it was you."

He didn't have the time for games.

"Grace, I need you to tell me if you know anything of a Harry St. James from your time in Boston. He's in the scene. If you've ever heard of him, dealt with him, anything at all that you know. He's an investment banker. Probably lives in the heart of the city."

The line crackled with static.

"Why are you asking me that?" she whispered after a pregnant pause. "Christian, why the fuck are you asking me about that man?"

His eyes snapped open wide.

Grace had been perhaps the toughest, most resilient woman he had ever met. Too tough for his hard limits. Too tough for the Red Room. And yet her voice, it was trembling in fear. His stomach lurched. What kind of a fucking monster _was_ this guy? He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to block out anything and everything that could be happening to Anastasia whilst he was out on the phone like a damned secretary.

"He's taken something of mine," he said quietly, "I need to know the kind of man I'm dealing with."

She breathed sharply down the line, but true to her warrior-like form, she got on with it.

"Allow me to be blunt?"

He inhaled sharply.

"Please."

"Whatever he has that belongs to you, let him keep it. He is perhaps the most dangerous man I have ever met. He was in a specialist club one night. We shared one night. I pride myself on reading a man like a book, Christian. But I read him wrong. He's a master manipulator. He moves in the dark. He has the kind of influence that even, forgive me, you would find hard to replicate. He made a killing in the recession. By buying out the poorest of the poor. With peanuts. With threats and force. He has a streak of cruelty in him that I have never, ever seen in a man. He feels nothing. Nothing but the thrill of others in pain. He has no scruples, limits or morals. He has law enforcement in his pocket. Cops, Judges, you name it. He keeps a low profile and that's his biggest strength. You never know who or what he is until it's too late."

Christian swallowed.

"Grace…what did he do to you? On that one night you shared?"

She was silent for a moment, before he could hear the hesitant peel of her lips.

"Is this information important to you? Because if it isn't, Christian, it isn't easy for me…"

He gnawed his lip, guilt flooding him.

"Grace, I wouldn't ask unless it was important. Please?"

"Many things. Despicable things. But his main thing is…" She swallowed. "He burned me. That's his thing. He uses electricity to brand his girls where their scars can't be seen. The energy penetrates the skin so deeply that the scars can never truly fade. He wets the skin first to truly maximise the pain. Once you've been branded by him, there's no removing his mark. Believe me, I've tried."

Not much could make Christian Grey want to gag, but there and then, he retched.

"How-"

"How did he do it? Why didn't I fight him off?" She laughed. "Because he drugs his girls. We were having a good time. I got careless. I didn't see him slip anything in my drink. I was still laughing when he tied me up. In a way no one could break free from. I was still laughing until I saw the sparks. No matter how hard or loud I screamed, he didn't stop. It just seemed to turn him on. He's obsessed with electricity. Carries a fucking taser in his pocket everywhere he goes. Says it's to keep his girls in line in public. Has a special one for each girl. He's the sickest son-of-a-bitch I have ever met, Christian. And you and I both know that that's saying something. So whatever he has belonging to you, you best be wise and let him keep it. You wouldn't be the first millionaire he's bankrupted with a select fleet of corrupt police and judiciary by his side."

Christian paled so hard and so fast that even his blood cells stopped mid-flow to stare unseeingly.

The line went into a spell of supreme silence for an impregnable amount of time.

"Christian?"

His lips weighed like molten lead as he ripped them apart.

"Thank you, Grace. Goodbye."

His chest constricted with the taunting possibility of an oncoming panic attack. He swallowed down the rising tide of anxiety with more effort than it had ever cost him. Sifting through Grace's information in his brain, he suddenly gasped with widening eyes and bolted back in and up the stairs to Anastasia's apartment. Kicking open the door to her bedroom, his heart plummeted at the scene that greeted him. Jason lay gasping on the floor. The window to the fire escape was wide open, the floral curtain fluttering lazily in the breeze. He watched in a sort of horrified paralysis as his right-hand-man pointed a stiff hand, unable to speak, to the immediate left-hand side of his rigid, singed torso.

Christian swallowed a mouthful of bile.

The small black device was engraved, proclaiming to pack a whopping 1.7 milliamps.

He squinted, trying to make out the further engravings as Taylor sat shakily up, aided by his boss' strong grasp. Waving away Jason's apologies with a muttered "you couldn't have known, don't apologise," Christian leant down further to decipher the additional expensive and elaborate engraving on the bezel of the taser gun. His teeth set into a grinding snarl as the information leapt from the gun to his brain. His senses were set on fire and a compulsive desire to detect and destroy engulfed him as his lips wordlessly mouthed the engraving to himself.

 _For Harper_

….

TBC

….


	7. Chapter 7

"You see what you make me do, Harper? You see what you do to me?"

He crouched down in front of her, a cruel sneer pulling at his lips. A droplet of blood trickled slowly down his nose. Reaching up, he allowed it to flow sluggishly onto the back of his hand. He admired it for a moment before slowly reaching out and spreading it across her face with a low chuckle. As she jerked away in repulsion, halted by her tight bounds and silenced by her gagged mouth, his chuckle grew glacial.

"You don't like my blood, Harper? That's a shame. I like yours. I like yours very much."

He hunkered down and with a rough hand, forced her chin upwards between his index finger and thumb.

"Do you know how I came to be injured? Do you know how my blood came to be spilled? Would you like to know? What am I saying, of course you would. I know you care for me very deeply. I shall tell you. It was at the behest of your new friend, the charming Mr Grey. He ordered his prime monkey to hold and beat me until such time as I disclosed your location." His condescending laugh reverberated off the metal walls of the moving van. "Can you believe that? A man like me to be crushed by a man like him? All he has achieved is putting himself on my radar. And you know as well as I do, my dear Harper, that that is a very bad place to be."

He smeared his blood further down her cheek with his thumb, his eyes growing steadily colder.

"It's a bad place for him, but it's an even worse place for you. You see, I was very upset when you ran away from me. I was very upset indeed. My possessions are permanent, you know that. So, I've thought long and hard about a suitable punishment for you. Well, _punishments_ really. Plural. I think we both know that you've grown far too big for your britches, haven't you? You need to be cut back down to size, don't you? I've thought long and hard about how best to do that. But I never factored in the _possibility_ that you would be _unfaithful_ to me. I suppose I can understand how a simple little slut like you could be overwhelmed by your luck in being with me, unable to justify being in my presence. But I cannot understand how you would _dare_ flirt with another man whilst belonging to me."

His voice grew silkier and her heart hammered faster.

"You see the harlot you become without my guidance? You see the filthy little whore you turn into without the firmness of my hand? Did you hear yourself when you were speaking to him? The breathless little tone of your voice, the precious little flush of your face? Because I did. I heard everything. I know that you knew exactly what he was the moment you laid your eyes on him. And you wanted him, didn't you? You _desired_ him? All whilst belonging to me." He moved closer, thrilling at the tears of fear brimming in her eyes. "Can you imagine how angry I was to hear my slut using her filthy little mouth to flirt with another man?" he whispered, his breath washing over her screwed-up face. "Can you imagine how disgusted I was to hear all about your little dinner plans?"

The sudden and violent slap across the face drew a muffled gasp from her.

"Now now," Harry murmured in velvety tones, "Have you forgotten your training? I spent so long breaking you in and after a few short months, you don't know how to conduct yourself? No gasps unless I request them. No tears unless I ask for them. No moans or groans unless I permit them. Given that that little taster is just the warm-up to your warm-up, and being a generous, forgiving man, I will let that one go." He leaned in further still, his cold skin pressing against her forearm, sending a wave of nausea through her. His gaze lingered over her, drinking her in. His lips twitched in feral victory, images of the night ahead running through his demonic mind. His eyes glinted with malice as he thought of all the ways he was going to make her pay. How he was going to grind her down and reclaim her for his own.

"Where is your Mr Grey now, Harper? Hmm? Do you think he is going to come for you?"

His tinkling laugh sent the hairs on the back of her neck sky-high.

"Do you? Is that what you think? That he's out there somewhere right now, moving heaven and earth to get you back? You think he's making calls and screaming orders to safely locate his precious Anastasia Steele? What kind of ridiculous name is that anyway? Did you really think I wouldn't figure it out, that I wouldn't hunt you down like the simple little dog you are? Well, I suppose it doesn't matter now. Because he isn't coming for you. No man goes that far for a simple fuck. And that's all you are. Simple. And a fuck. You are mine. You are nothing and you are mine, from this day on. You will never escape me again, Harper, you will never have the opportunity to flee from me again."

She was rapidly turning to stone, her defences kicking in. Dissociation. Hard to learn, harder to forget.

This seemed to amuse him. A malevolent mirth popped into his cold, blue eyes.

"When I am through with you, when I have you broken into a hundred-thousand pieces of yourself, I'm going to turn my attention to _him._ To the man who was foolish enough to covet my property. To the man who was imbecilic enough to think that he could lay claim to what was mine. I am going to destroy him. You've seen how I can do that, haven't you my sweet girl? And that's just to men who've slighted me in the business sense of things. Imagine my motivation to crush the vermin who decided to slight me in the most personal of my senses. The man who saw fit to lay claim on my most treasured little tramp. By the time I am done with your pretty little knight in shining armour, he's going to be destitute. He's going to be ostracised from the smooth circles he moves in. He's going to be in utter ruination."

His teeth glinted with sadistic pleasure as the van came to a shuddering halt.

They were there.

His parting words before all went black, sent a torrent of ice down Ana's spine.

"He's going to rue the day he _ever_ crossed Harry St. James."

…

TBC

…


	8. Chapter 8

"Sir, all I am saying is that perhaps you should-"

"Taylor," Christian gritted out from the back seat, "Now is not the time."

"With all due respect, Sir," the loyal Jason murmured, "Now seems to be the most opportune of times. If what Grace has told you is true, then this man is not to be messed with. He knocked me clean on my ass with an ease that shames me. Do you know how long it's been since a man knocked me on my ass? Years. It's been years and years. You barely know this girl. You've known her for only a few hours. Is she worth bringing down what apparently happened to other men in your position for a girl you've known for mere hours? If nothing else, shouldn't we just call the police? This is an _abduction_ we're talking about."

Christian's teeth gnashed together as he stared rigidly out the window.

"He has officers in his pocket, no telling which ones and where. Judges too."

Jason supressed a sigh as he took the next sharp right.

"Fine. No police, but-"

"Window up, Taylor."

As the sights of Seattle whipped past his tinted window, Christian grew more and more irate. An unfamiliar fear gripped him. Fear for what was happening to Anastasia, fear for how much he cared. Fear the he was too little, too late. He swallowed. There was a reason he was unused to fear. It was not an emotion a man like him suffered often. If he were to help Anastasia, he needed to keep a level head. Just like in the most pressurised of business deals. He closed his eyes and thought deeply as Taylor drove aimlessly through the streets as ordered. Driving around always helped him to think. Minutes trickled by before his eyes snapped open, his infernal cell shrilling loudly into the silence.

His instinct to answer it was automatic.

"Grey."

The silence on the other end of the line was brief, but it seemed to tingle with menace.

"You see what you made me do, Mr Grey? You see what you do to me?"

Christian's entire being snapped to attention. An emotion he didn't understand or recognise flooded through him. He rapped smartly on the widow. Gesturing to his phone meaningfully as Taylor rolled it down, he didn't speak until the track and trace was initiated. The gentle whisper of laughter that drafted down the line made the hairs on the back of his neck stand.

"Stand down with your infernal trace, Mr Grey. It's a burner."

The toned torso deflated and a fistful of auburn hair was clenched in blinding frustration.

"Where is she, St. James? You sick bastard. I'll kill you. Where is Anastasia?"

He could hear the cruel smile. It sent chills coursing through every single one of his vertebrae.

"Come now, Mr Grey. Come now. It is very rude for a man of your background to improperly address a lady. Her name is Harper. Harper Marie Wakefield. There is no Anastasia Steele. She is the figment of an over-active imagination. You must forget about her now. Which brings me to the purpose of this little chat."

He paused for a moment and Christian could visualise the cold blue eyes glinting with sick pleasure.

"Harper and I have much to catch up upon. We have much to reminisce and much to create. I must retrain her in many things, and teach her a great deal more. I must wash away the sins of her past. I fear it will take a long time to accomplish. There are so many sins and such a thorough cleaning is required. To do all this, I need solitude and peace. I need to know that there isn't an over-zealous pretty boy plotting my ruination in the confines of his silly little glass office. You're a man after my own heart, I know you can bring yourself to understand the need to brand one's property. To patent it, to licence it. To forsake all others from it. That is all I am doing, don't you see? I am merely putting my trademark to the silly little bitch that thought she could defy _me_ and live her deluded happily ever after."

Christian's heart didn't beat as the silky voice of raw venom continued down the line.

"So, I propose a truce. A compromise. You're a businessman, you can appreciate the benefits of coming to an acceptable arrangement. So, listen closely. You will agree to forget all about Harper, forget all about me and everything to do with me. And in return, I will agree to ensure her relative safety and her reasonable wellbeing. I will agree that she will not be irrevocably harmed or maimed. I will agree that she will be fed enough so as to sustain her life and I will agree that she will be fucked enough so as to justify her life."

The sick grin burned through the receiver.

"So, what do you say? Do you consent to this little compromise, Mr Grey?"

A silence so thick and heady wrapped itself around the town car that Taylor could've sworn his ears compressed under the pressure. An interminable moment past without a syllable being uttered. A burning and building rage was lashing a usually emotionless and self-possessed Christian Grey. The anger was so intense and pure he could almost taste it. It singed the tip of his tongue. Pinching the bridge of his nose and making to himself a promise that he would discharge come hell or high water, he peeled apart his lips and spoke in deathly tone of ire. A tone of voice that he didn't even recognise as his own.

"If you do not let her go, unharmed and unhurt, I will fucking destroy you."

A staggering silence met the quiet proclamation.

It seemed to wind and stretch, forcing its way into nothingness. Breaking the pregnant pause, Harry's voice was cool and aloof as he spoke his parting comments, his eyes lingering over an unanimated Anastasia with a cruel and vindictive malice.

"She will pay for you foolishness," he said softly, "She will pay dearly."

He chuckled before nodding his acceptance of the new terms and conditions of his sick world.

"Very well then. Let the games begin, Mr Grey, let the games begin."

…..

TBC

…


	9. Chapter 9

**WARNING: RAPE/VIOLENCE REFERENCES/SCENE. *PLEASE* DO *NOT* READ IF THIS IS A TRIGGER FOR YOU.**

She woke. A wall of terror sprung up inside her. It wasn't a nightmare. It wasn't the nightmare she had suffered every night since she'd escaped him. It was what she had escaped. It was the cold blue eyes. It was the handsome face of an angel that hid the demonic devil that lay below. It was the hands that were so soft, that caused more pain than any human had been designed to bear. It was the smile that shrouded him in light, distracting from the pit of darkness within. She blinked, her heart shivering in fear, her pulse racing so hard and so fast the room began to spin.

The room.

She looked around.

This was not a room she knew. It was bright and it was airy. The balmy afternoon breeze was prevented from entry by the locked windows. Its light was slightly stunted by the bars that reminded her of what she was. His prisoner. Again. She could feel him gazing at her with his hunter's eyes. Drinking in the fear that she could not hide. She swallowed. Tears were coming and if they came, they would set the tone for what was to happen next. He loved her tears. Loved to see them fall, loved to catch them in his manicured hand. Loved to mock her for her weakness. She blinked them back fiercely. She would not cry. She would not grant the monster that fodder. Her mouth was sore and tender from the gag that had been removed, her wrists bore the marks of their recent tethering. She forced her voice to be clear and strong.

"Harry. Fancy meeting you here."

He grinned.

Sat there on her makeshift bed, she almost believed her own strength. He would move her soon. Back to Boston. He was protected by the authorities in Seattle too, but that protection was stronger back home. And for what he planned, he would need that protection. He sat back on the stool from where he had watched her sleep. Chloroform always provided for a deep and more importantly silent sleep. Her rising and falling chest had mesmerised him. He hadn't realised how much he had missed his most treasured plaything. None before her had given his darkness its due. He had reached his own inner peak of sadism with her.

He couldn't wait to do so again.

"Harper," he greeted, as though they were in a romantic restaurant, "You're as beautiful as ever."

His eyes glinted.

"But so much make-up," he mused softly. "You know how I feel about you wearing make-up."

His mouth quirked.

"Such artificial filth is for whores and harlots, is it not?"

He smirked at the flinch she couldn't hide, as she recalled the memories she couldn't forget.

"No matter, no matter," Harry murmured, "It's only natural that something of your intelligence would forget their basic training after they escaped their Master. Like a dog roaming loose off the chain, you forget your manners. We'll come back to that. We will start from the beginning and I will break you down into the finest dust. And from that you can grow again. Into what I desire. Into a mould of my choosing. But first, sweet Harper, first we must address a rather large elephant that is in this room. It goes by the name of Christian fucking Grey."

He reached out and roughly caught her chin in his hand.

"You knew him only a few hours but now he _wants_ you. He _desires_ you. He wishes to _protect_ you. You can see how that wound my feelings, Harper, can't you? You can see how that would put a spoke in our works? I've done everything for you. I put the food in your mouth and the clothes on your back. And in repayment, you run away from me. You run away from me and you ensnare him in your little spell. Were you planning to serve him, Harper? Hmm? Planning to fuck him? Drop to your knees and bow your pretty little head to him?"

The grip around her chin tightened.

She said nothing, showed nothing, betrayed nothing.

Her only defence.

He smiled slowly, amused by her armour, knowing just how to shed it from her.

"No matter," he whispered, making the hair on her arms stand. "I am going to destroy him. And it is entirely his own fault. I really did give him every warning and option. Just two hours ago, I gave him another warning. You were asleep my love. He, just like you, made the very foolish choice to disobey and displease me. He must be punished as you must be. Of course, the things I will do to correct him are _very_ different to things I am going to do to correct you." His gaze lingered over her trembling body, his fingers caressing her smooth chin. "Very different," he repeated softly.

His eyes flitted down to her chest, still covered in her intern attire.

"You dress like a proper little lady now, don't you? Like you're something. Like you're someone. You've forgotten who and what you are, little girl. But I am going to remind you. I am going to give you a reminder that you're never going to forget. Many reminders over a long, long time. But every great journey begins somewhere, doesn't it? A man has to _start_ somewhere." He released her chin, his hand wandering down her torso. "And I think _this_ man is going to begin by unburdening you of your finery, my sweet girl. You are a tramp, Harper. You are _my_ tramp. You are no businesswomen. You are no equal to your male counterpart. You are a silly little bitch whose main purpose in life is to pleasure _me._ How I want it, where I want it, when I want it."

He rubbed the fabric of her collar and smiled the psychopathic smile that haunted her sleep.

"And I want you, I want you here, and I want you now."

Sweat popped at her temples. No matter how she tried to hide it, her raw fear burst from her like a punctured fire hydrant. She jerked away. Scrambling back on the bed. She looked wildly for a way out. There was none. Of course there was none. Her hands balled into fists. She would not lie there and take it. She would fight. She would lose, yes, but she would fight. She knew the fight would only make his eventual victory even sweeter for him, but she had to fucking try anyway. His laugh washed over like a pooling venom. She could see as he stood and kicked the stool away, he was hard, bulging against his expensively tailored trousers.

"Nowhere to run, Harper," he sang, in a voice that chilled her, "Nowhere to hide."

He moved closer as she pinned herself at the head of the bed, her knees drawn tightly to her chest.

"After I take you, Harper, after I fuck you senseless, I'm going to have a little look at your scars. I think by now they need a great deal of, shall we say, _topping up_. I'm afraid I lost your particular toy back at your apartment, but I will get you a brand new one. A stronger one. Just for you. My most treasured little tramp." He was at the head of the bed now, towering over her, taking in her balled fists. His laugh was like the hardest of slaps to the face.

"You think you can fight me off? You think you can defend yourself? I'd be clever if I were you, my dear, I would think ahead. How I choose to punish you can be greatly affected by how good a girl you are now. How accommodating you are. How good you make me feel. So, if I were you, I would spread those slender little legs of yours and cause me no trouble."

She shivered, remembering a similar speech of long ago, and bit back the urge to weep.

"You're a sick bastard," she spat, "I will make you suffer for this."

His callous laugh reverberated around the room.

"Your choice," he shrugged, the smile on his lips about to slip away. When it did, his face morphed into who he truly was. No pretence. Just a monster in an angel's body. Snarling, he lunged forwards and seized her knees, exerting enough pressure to snap the bones. She screamed, highly and forcefully, and tried to claw his face. The slap spurted blood from her nose. The next blow made her see stars. He was built forcefully and stockily. She could not fight him off. She screamed at the top of her lungs as he managed to peel her legs apart, throwing her dress up around her waist.

"No one can hear you scream you stupid bitch," he snarled, reaching up to yank her panties down to her ankles.

She screamed even louder, she had never screamed so loud in her life.

Just as his fingers hooked into the waistband of her panties, an unseen force yanked him backwards. Slammed him to the ground. The room was suddenly in chaos. The door that she knew had been locked was wide open, broken at the hinges. Bruises blossoming on her inner thighs, she winced as she scrambled backwards, yanking her dress down as she went. She blinked in the anarchy. She blinked again, her eyes and brain struggling to coincide, to believe. Two figures tossed and tussled on the floor. One had the vastly upper hand, though a thick stream of blood coursed down their face. Grunts of pain and curses of ire wafted around the room until a nose-crunching blow landed and a figure rose, the other laying still on the ground.

She scrambled back further, a raw terror burning her.

The figure approached as another figure barrelled into the room.

She screamed. Eyes closed. Mouth wide open.

A soft hand landed on hers and she screamed all the louder.

The hand merely squeezed hers gently in response.

Her eyes opened slowly in shock, her mouth remaining widely stretched, but silent.

His face was coated in blood, his shirt splattered with same. He knelt by the bed, fishing in his pocket to extract a soft handkerchief. He pressed it against her face, catching her own droplets of blood as they dripped down her abused skin. His eyes burned. But his touch was soft. Her mouth slowly closed, her eyes bulging in their sockets. When she eventually managed to speak, her voice was mute and unlike her own, her conscious screaming at her that she must be in the grips of a very forgiving dream.

"Mr Grey?"

His head inclined, somehow still painfully handsome when covered in his own blood, his voice as soothing to her physical and mental wounds as a high dose morphine injection.

"Miss Steele. Everything is going to be alright now. You have my word."

…..

TBC

…..


	10. Chapter 10

The wild look of terror in her eyes was something he would never, ever forget.

The rage that had driven his adolescent brawling drenched him. He stood rigidly. Trembling with anger. He knew he could not touch her. She would absolutely lose her mind. What little of it that bastard had left behind, anyway. His teeth smashed together like colliding tectonic plates. The urge to wound was like acid on his tongue. His own blood was drying into his skin as he pivoted slowly on his heel. The voice that came out of his mouth, he didn't even recognise as being his own. It wasn't the smooth and polished diction of the multi-millionaire Mr Grey. It was the dark, clipped tones of a much older, but younger, Christian.

"Taylor. Escort Miss Steele to the car. Do not touch her in any way. I will join you shortly."

Straightening up after binding a moaning Harry's hands with his own tie, a look of wariness crossed the veteran's face. His gaze wandered over his employer and his brow furrowed. Even as an ex-serviceman and being quite the alpha-male himself, he never second-guessed Mr Grey's orders. But there was something about this one that had him hesitating. Because the order wasn't really given by the Mr Grey he knew. It was given by the Mr Grey he suspected had been buried deep down and a long time ago. He found himself looking from the despicable creature on the floor to a now thunderous looking Christian and knowing in his gut what would happen if he walked out the door.

"Sir, I think it might be for the best if you were to escort Miss Steele."

If the situation weren't so damned serious, the death-drop of Christian's mouth might have been funny. He stared at his right-hand-man as if he had five heads, and was in his third trimester of some alien pregnancy. _No-one rebuffed his orders with suggestions of their own._ Never. And especially not the taciturn, dependable Taylor. And if he was going to start, now was as bad a time as possible to do it. Shock flowed freely away from Christian's eyes and an even more poisonous anger replaced it.

"I beg your pardon?"

His voice was like the modern-day Mr Grey once again, but his eyes were not.

Those cold eyes belonged to someone else.

No matter how he tried to hide it, Jason knew the tycoon had quite the heart in that icy chest of his.

"If I leave you here with him, alone, you're going to kill him."

The pronouncement blasted around the room like wildfire. And both employer and employee knew it to be true. Glancing down at the vermin on the floor, a fresh surge of terrifying rage lashed against Christian and he yearned to smash the bastard's face off the walls again and again until the magnolia paint ran freely with his blood. He took a deep breath. It did absolutely fuck all. He hadn't been this angry since he was a fourteen-year-old boy, battling to balance his heinous past with his perfect present.

"What I do and do not do, is no consideration of yours. Your only concern is to do as I tell you to do."

His lips pared back in a snarl that somehow made his handsome face even more beautiful.

"And right now," he growled, "I am telling you to escort Miss Steele to the car. _Move."_

Knowing full well that his very well paid and very much appreciated job was most likely about to end quite abruptly, Taylor shook his head slowly.

"I can't do that, Sir. Someone like you should never serve a life-sentence for someone like him."

Grey eyes bulged in a pool of emotion that even the esteemed Dr Flynn wouldn't recognise.

"And what kind of a person is someone like me?" Christian snapped back, "Enlighten me.

Jason spoke quietly, but held the snarling magnate's gaze with a steady ease.

"A man who is everything he thinks he is not and cannot be."

He gestured towards the silent and unseeing Anastasia, still pinned against the wall, terror lancing through her eyes.

"You are what she needs right now. Not me. Go, take the car. I will deal with this and report to you in due course."

A deafening silence greeted his words.

Christian was rarely rendered mute, but there in that room with all the horrors that went with it, he was speechless. No person in his employ had ever dared question, let alone turn his own orders back upon him. He blinked. Waited for the scathing rage of indignancy to bite him. But it didn't. He blinked again. He was still radiating with rage, but it was for St. James and St. James alone. For Taylor, he felt something different. Something he couldn't define. He glanced behind his back at the pale, silent and utterly traumatised looking Anastasia and knew immediately what is was that he felt.

Gratitude.

Without a word, he turned his back to Jason and crouched down to meet her eye-level. She let out a small whimper at his closeness. He immediately nudged back an appreciable inch. She looked at him with such fear he felt it himself. It took every ounce of strength he had to keep his mind on her and not Harry fucking St. James. When he locked his eyes on her and truly saw her, he instinctively knew what to do.

Even if, in that moment, it repulsed him to do it.

He spoke quietly, but his voice rang with authority.

"I am going to lift you from that bed, Miss Steele. I am going to bring you to the car that is outside this building. I am going to bring you to either my or your apartment, the choice is yours. I am going to stay with you until we can figure out what to do, what you need. None of these things are negotiable. They are simply a sequence of events that, regardless of any feelings on the matter, are going to happen. I do not need you to speak. You don't have to open your mouth if you do not want to. Merely nod your head if you understand what I have just said."

The longest, most pregnant, most heart-pounding moment passed with absolutely and categorically nothing.

Nada, niente, nichts.

He had brokered multi-million-dollar deals with the eyes of the world on him and felt not a fraction of the unease he suffered as he drank her in. assessed her every pupil dilation, hitched breath and nervous twitch. He had carefully blocked St. James from her view with his broad shoulders. All she could see was him. He eclipsed her in that moment. She considered his eyes and feared they would morph into cold blue pools of sadism with every passing second. She stared so intently, her own eyes watered with her intensity. His eyes remained the same. Still the same smoky swirls of grey.

Her head felt impossibly heavy.

Like if it had to take in one more single surprising event, it would explode.

Closing her eyes, shutting out the world, she nodded.

Within a millisecond she was in his arms. The first smell of him was a sedative. His scent was clean, delicate, but it soared down her nasal passages. The calming effect was instantaneous. The warmth of his torso was like a crackling fire. The feel of his strong arms supporting her with a ridiculous ease was a balm, a salve. Before she could prevent it, hot and salty tears poured silently from her closed eyes as the full extent of her ordeal began to truly hit home. She didn't sob, she didn't wail, she didn't make a sound. But the tears came hard and they came fast, dampening the front of Christian's blood-spattered shirt with every drop.

As he walked past Taylor, with a seemingly broken Anastasia safely in his arms, he paused.

Just for a moment.

His voice was low, soft, she couldn't hear it such was her own turmoil.

"The next time you think you're right and I'm wrong and you consider disobeying a direct order…" His gaze lingered over his trusted employee's face and his voice dropped another octave. "Feel free to do so. A hundred times over. Thank you, Taylor."

With that and nothing but that, he swept from the room.

He sat her into the back of the car with ease. Reached around her to buckle her in, before grabbing a blanket from the trunk and draping it over her. She was shivering. He had assessed her as he walked. She had no physical injuries to speak of. Her pain was a psychological one. A hospital would do her no good. He started the car and slid smoothly from the space, realising he didn't know where he was going.

"Would you like to go to your apartment or mine?" he asked softly.

She shivered under the blanket and spoke so quietly he barely caught her answer.

"Why are you doing this? You don't even know me. You don't need to…he'll make you pay."

It took every skill he had not to crash the car.

"Wash him from your mind," he murmured quietly as he unilaterally decided on his apartment, rationalising that any memory of him where not necessary was best avoided, "He cannot get to you. He will never, ever hurt you again. I give you my word, Miss Steele. That…man, will never lay a hand on you as long as I'm drawing breath. I don't give my word lightly. When I do, I mean what I say. You will _never_ have to see him again."

Her chin dropped onto her chest, her eyes closing shut. Her voice had a painful defeated edge.

"You don't know him. You don't know what he'll do to you. He's capable of things you can't even imagine. He could ruin your business. He could ruin your life. You don't even know me. You don't owe me anything. Why are you _doing_ this? I'm not worth the trouble. Trust me. I'm not worth the trouble he'll rain down on your head."

He glanced in the rear-view mirror and felt himself pale.

"I have a very hard head, Miss Steele, and you are worth far more than you know."

She clutched the blanket to her, the tears that hadn't stopped dripping steadily onto the soft wool.

"I knew he'd find me," she whispered, as if to herself. "I always knew he'd find me. I thought I could bury Harper. I thought I could leave her behind and start afresh. Be someone else. Harper was weak and pathetic. She let him do things to her that no woman should ever allow be done to her. She was disgusting, a parasite. I thought if she died in the fire that something better could be born. Someone better. I've always liked the name Anastasia. Since I saw the film." Her mouth twitched. "Disney. I love Disney. I choose Steele because it sounds strong, unbending. I thought I'd be a mix of sweetness, like Anastasia, and strength, like Steele."

She laughed a watery laugh that rang with a terrible sadness.

"It's true what they say. There really is nothing sadder than a fool fooling themselves."

The car idled to a stop at a red light. For the second time in a mere hour, Christian was speechless.

She opened her red-rimmed eyes, still brimming with tears, and drew a shuddering breath.

"I should've known this day would happen sooner or later because I was running from myself, from who I really am." She shook her head, as if trying to throw troublesome thoughts from it, shrugging out of the blanket in agitation. "I'm Harper. I'm Harper Wakefield. I'm his slut. Nothing more. If I'd had the brains to elude him, perhaps I could've been, but he was right. I'm nothing. I'm nothing without him, and I'm nothing to him. I'm nothing. You've been so kind," she whispered, her face paling even further as the hair on Christian's neck rose, "You don't know me and you went up against _him_ for me. The woman who ends up with you is one lucky creature."

Before the light could turn green and before he could blink, her hand shot out to the door.

"I have to get away," she whispered frantically, "I have to go. It's best for everyone. Someone like you should never be tangled up with someone like me. Harper's dead, Anastasia's dead. Someone new needs to be born before it's too late."

The door was suddenly flung open as he twisted forcefully in his seat, constrained by his belt. They locked eyes for the briefest of moments before she was out and melted into the bustling Seattle crowd.

"Thank you, Mr Grey. Thank you for your kindness."

He opened his mouth, jabbed at his seatbelt, but she was gone.

The light turned green.

Horns began blaring.

His voice thundered around the car, spoken to no-one, ringing with conflicting emotion.

 _"_ _Fuck."_

…..

TBC

…..


	11. Chapter 11

Taylor looked down upon the silent heap at his feet and thought rapidly. One didn't need to be a licenced practitioner of psychology to know exactly what Harry St. James was. A psychopath. Highly intelligent, completely without compassion or empathy and utterly depraved. A ready-made sadist. All dressed up like a suave, charming business man of the modern ages. His eyes gleamed with challenge as he stared haughtily upwards. There was no fear in his eyes. He couldn't feel his own fear. He could only leech happily off the terror of others. As he stared down in disgust, Taylor knew in his heart and soul that if he were to let the creature go, Miss Steele would eventually be the one to suffer from his decision.

"Tough call to make," Harry suddenly murmured from the floor, "Decisions, decisions. You don't know the extent of my reach, so you don't know if killing me will solve all your wonderful Mr Grey's problems. You don't know if you can do it, you don't know if you should do it. But your heart bleeds for Miss Wakefield. Or of course, Miss Steele. Whichever. You're asking yourself, do I really want to commit a federal crime to protect a girl I've never even _spoken_ to?" He grinned and Jason's stomach lurched unpleasantly at the madness within. "On the other hand, you've devoted your life to Mr Grey, haven't you? A man a considerable number of years your junior. He could even be your son."

A delicate sneer played about the curves of his cruel mouth.

"Is that what this is, you have feelings for the boy? Because that's all he is. A foolish, rich little boy. One who thinks his money can buy him the world. Protect those whom he wishes to protect. Well, it can't. Whatever happens to me now, will be repaid ten times over upon Miss…whatever. I'm a pro-active man, Taylor. I have provisions in place for all eventualities. I belong to a very select club. If I were to befall some sort of unfortunate accident, there's another me ready to take my place. A worse version of me, if I do say so myself. And the first order of business for that new me, is to finish up the business of old me."

Cold blue eyes gleamed with such malice that Jason's stomach turned.

"So choose wisely, Taylor. Choose very wisely. It would be a shame for a man of your talents to waste away in a federal prison. Because you will you know. Waste away in a federal prison. No matter how clever you think you are, I assure you I'm cleverer. You will be caught, you will be tried by very close friends of mine, and you will look at the same four stone walls for the rest of your days. All in the name of a man who only see's you as just another insert on his payroll. A dispensable part of the only thing he cares about. His money."

He smiled, a true grimace of insanity and tilted his head to the side.

"Come and work for me, Taylor. I can reward you far better than your Mr Grey ever would or could. In return, I give you my word that I will forget all about Harper. I won't pursue her, I won't harm her. I will place her in my past and move the hell on with you by my side, as you flank Mr Grey. That way, everybody wins. He gets to keep the girl, you don't have to commit a crime that you can never come back from, and I get to go back to Boston and find myself another Harper."

He raised a speculative brow.

"So, what do you say?"

Staring down in a stony silence, Taylor was rendered speechless. There was something alarmingly persuasive about the man at his feet. A sense of burning unease erupted in him as he remembered who the man's confidence reminded him of. Mr Grey. He had the same commanding presence, the same way of making people think what he wanted them to think. The same way of bringing someone into line, the line that he had drawn and wished to be adhered to. He swallowed. Relished in the realisation that washed over him. That was the only thing that Mr Grey and St. James had in common. Their confidence. Although he was well aware of his boss' predilections, he knew he was no sadist. Not the sick, perverted and sadistic piece of shit that St. James was.

"I say you need to shut your mouth before I shut it for you. Permanently."

Harry chuckled. The vibration of his sick mirth sent the hairs on the back of Jason's neck flying up.

"Well then, I suppose that you need to make your decision. Are you going to take your chances and call the police, think that the justice system will deal with me as it would any other citizen? Or are you going to grow a pair and end things. You don't have much time. My men are expecting me back shortly. I had only planned on a brief rekindling with Harper. They know that I am a punctual man. If I do not return when expected, they're going to come looking for me. And believe you me, Taylor, they know exactly where to look."

Opening his mouth in frustration, Jason's retort was cut short by his ringing cell.

Fishing it out and glaring at St. James, he answered it with his usual clipped greeting.

"Taylor."

Christian's voice was so loud, uncharacteristically so, that St. James could hear the whole conversation.

"She's gone. She freaked the fuck out when we were stalled at a red light and jumped from the car and took off. She has no cell, she's hysterical and it's freezing out there. I have no idea where she is or where she's going or where her mind is at. I need your help. I need to find her."

To the backdrop of St. James' low chuckle, Jason barely bit back a small sigh.

"Sir, I haven't yet dealt with the issue at hand here. I need to-"

"Taylor I don't give a flying fuck about that bastard right now. We need to _find her._ You didn't see the way she was. She's traumatised. She's terrified. She's alone. I need you and I need you know. With every man we have. Just bind him up in such a way that he can't be freed, bar the door so it can't be opened and get your ass to the location I'll send you in a second."

"But, Sir-"

"Right fucking now, Taylor."

The line went dead.

The room slowly filled Harry's laughter. It was a cold joviality, one that he couldn't feel. One that he had learned to mimic at the age of four. The torn quality on his captor's face was delicious and he drank it in with a greedy lust. This was a man who had spent his life following orders. A man for whom defiance of said orders was the highest and most egregious level of disrespect. He couldn't do it. He couldn't disobey the frantic Mr Grey. And yet, he knew he should. Harry could see the reservations as he was trussed up like a thanksgiving turkey. His bounds were professional. Taylor knew what he was doing. As the gag slipped into his mouth, he continued to laugh. The muffled mirth made Jason feel mildly sick. He'd dealt with despicable men. He'd dealt with deranged men. He'd dealt with delusional men.

But he'd never dealt with a despicable, deranged and a delusional man.

Harry St. James gave him the fucking creeps.

Lifting him bodily and throwing him into the corner, he shivered as the animal continued to laugh. The laugh stopped only when he laid a sickening punch into the man's jaw. Switching off the light, he made short work of barring the door with a professionalism he was fervently glad he held. He did the same with every single door that led to the outer door, barring that one with as much of a hold as physically possible. If St. James' men did indeed know where he was, they'd have a hell of a time getting in.

Hailing a cab and barking the address Mr Grey had sent, he fished out his cell.

His orders were crisp and clear, a sense of calmness returning to him from the reprieve of St. James' presence. Men were dispatched. His most trusted lieutenant he sent to guard the house in which he had bound Harry. All the rest, were sent to the location he had been sent to. Within twenty minutes they were there. Hopping out of the cab to find a tormented looking Christian striding up the sidewalk, Taylor reached him with ease. Relaying the conversation that had preceded Anastasia's bolt for freedom as quickly as possible, Christian watched with an uncharacteristic sense of helplessness as Taylor began to direct his team.

The streets were thronged with people.

How the hell were they going to find a girl that didn't want to be found?

As if reading his mind, as he often did, Jason cleared his throat.

"Be at ease, Sir. We will find her. The men are the best of the best. She won't have gotten far, we will locate her safely, I assure you."

Turning a pale face to his most trusted employee bar Ros, Christian arched a brow.

"Is this what it feels like?" he murmured, "Is this it?"

Before Taylor could even begin to fathom what the man was talking about, a short and sharp shout on the radio from one his men drew both their attention. "Sir. We think we may have a visual on Miss Steele. A young woman fitting her description was last seen heading west from the bodega you're outside. About five minutes ago. Witness described her as being disorientated. She was asking about train tickets, whether or not you could buy them without providing a name. Something about needing to provide a name in Boston."

Before Taylor could open his mouth, Christian was gone.

Sprinting was something he was naturally good at. The train station was three blocks ahead. He heard Taylor gain pace behind him, ignored his shouted plea to allow him to take the lead. Jason's stocky build meant he was stronger than his boss, but his boss was definitely faster. The affronted people who he darted past glared at his back as he barrelled along. His breath was steady, his relentless training more than having paid off. Before he could even think about seeing her speed away in a state of terror on a train to god knows where, the train station loomed large in front of him.

Impatiently throwing money at a staring turnstile worker, he burst through into the departure platforms.

Taylor was a mere five inches behind him.

Panting.

"Spread out," he barked at the long-suffering driver, "I'll take the North side you take the South side. Get as many men here as you can, as quick as you can. Go."

Knowing better than to argue, Taylor set off due South, muttering into his radio as he went. Screeching sounds of departing trains assaulted Christian's ears, people pushed and shoved past each other as he jogged along, his eyes peeled wide open. He scanned the platforms and the boarding trains with wide eyes, desperate for a glimpse of her dark hair. Why he felt so strongly, so incredibly strongly about a woman he didn't even know, he would never know. All he knew was that he did. And that the most important thing in that moment was finding her. Just as he was beginning to think she was surely already on her way to an unknown location, he spotted it.

The chewing of her bottom lip.

He stopped in his tracks. A haggard commuter crashed into him and screamed expletives into his unhearing ears. She was staring straight ahead in the window seat of a train bound for San Francisco. A twenty-two-hour journey. His head shook as he stared at her. Snapping to his senses, he jumped onto the train and worked his way with little to no manners to her cabin. Pulling open the sliding door, he was relieved to see that save for her, it was empty. She jumped with fear as she heard the door opening. Her eyes popped with terror. Only when she digested who it was did she seem to relax.

Fractionally.

He sat down opposite her, careful to keep his distance. They didn't have long to talk before the train was due to depart, so his words were to the point.

"Anastasia. You have to come with me now. I can keep you safe. Harry is being dealt with. He can never hurt you again. I promise you. I will never allow him to breathe the same air as you, ever again. Come with me now and I will protect you. I give you my word that no harm will come to you. In any way, shape or form."

She stared at him with parting lips and wide eyes.

"Why do you care?" she whispered, "You don't even know me."

He swallowed.

"I don't," he admitted quietly, "But I want to know you. I really want to know you."

The train barked a warning siren and the engines trundled beneath them. He stood and held his hand out to her. As if acting mechanically, she shakily stood and grasped it. It was freezing. He held it tightly.

"Trust me, Anastasia," he murmured, "Everything is going to be ok now."

He pushed and shoved their way through and off the crowded train. Ensuring she didn't have to touch off anyone, speak to anyone. Shielding her behind his back. It took an inordinate amount of snarling and heaving, but he eventually got both of them off the train and back onto the platform. She stood unsteadily beside him, clearly unsure of her surrounds, the shock still very much obscuring her take on reality. Within the blink of an eye, Taylor had materialised by his side and between the two of them they managed to safely escort a silent Anastasia back to the awaiting car. Closing the door on her and leaning against it for a moment, the two men took a second to catch their breath.

"Get me Flynn. She needs an evaluation. Bring him to Escala. In no less than an hour."

Nodding his assent, Taylor privately considered this a very good idea.

His heart was breaking for Miss Steele. Having spent the time he had spent with St. James, he couldn't begin to imagine what she had gone through. He opened his mouth to give Christian a rundown on the lock-up of St. James and frankly, ask his advice on how to proceed. Before he could, his cell shrilled.

"Taylor."

Christian instantly sensed something unpleasant was about to be relayed to him.

Jason rung off the call with a stony expression pressing into every single line of his face.

"Sir. I'm sorry. I had Davidson guarding that sick son-of-a-bitch. It was all going fine until his men came for him. They were well trained and well-organised. There was nothing Davidson could do."

He swallowed as a blazing fire began to roar in Christian's eyes.

"St. James is gone, Sir."

…

TBC

…


	12. Chapter 12

The brief silence was one of the tensest Taylor had ever experienced.

"You will not mention that fact to Miss Steele," Christian eventually gritted out through clenched teeth, breaking the stalemate. "As far as she is to be made aware, we have St. James. He didn't break free, he's not out there roaming the streets free as a fucking bird, and she has nothing to worry about. Is that clear?"

Jason swallowed.

"Sir, shouldn't she be made aware that he-"

"When I start running a democracy Taylor, I'll let you know. Until then, take us to Escala."

Sliding in beside her cold and rigid body, Christian felt a foreign sense of helplessness overtake him. A part of him simply wished he could order her to be ok. He supressed the foolish want with ease. With another ease that surprised him, he wrapped a gentle arm around her trembling shoulders and pulled her into the warmth of his torso. He waited tensely for her to scream and fight against him, but to the contrary, she allowed her head to drop onto his chest with a small sigh that contained so much sadness it burned him. Panic swelled in him at the closeness, but he forced it down. She was the one who had been through the recent shitstorm, not him. The very least he could do was hold her. As best as someone like he could.

"You smell nice," she mumbled into his shirt, "Very clean."

Despite the seriousness of the situation and his own habitual severity, a chuckle escaped him.

"We aim to please, Miss Steele."

She tensed against him and a searing silence filled the back of the town car.

"You don't have to call me that anymore," she whispered, "You know who I really am."

His arm tightened around her as Seattle whizzed by in a haze of store fronts and green lights.

"You are Anastasia Steele," he countered quietly, "You are she, because she is who you chose to be. If there's anything that I've learned in this life, it is that we are nothing more or less than what we make ourselves. So, until you no longer want to be Miss Anastasia Steele, that is exactly who you are. Nothing and no one can take that away from you. Not if you don't let them."

She peeked up at him through a curtain of dark, wet eyelashes.

"You really think that? You think…we're free to be whomever we choose to be?"

He glanced down at her and marvelled at the hold this girl held on him, garnered in mere hours.

"I am living proof that we're free to be whomever we choose to be, Miss Steele," he said quietly, cryptically, "Circumstance and experiences of the past can be useful, of course, but when those things cause us only pain, they become dispensable. You have experienced a disgusting period of depravity and abuse, and that will leave its mark, but it doesn't define who you are. Or where you're going. If you believe anything, believe that."

She said nothing for a moment and he seized the opportunity to shrug out of his suit jacket and drape it over her shoulders, gathering her back to him quickly. Her shock was wearing off and her eyelids were growing heavy with the trauma of her day. He held her close to his chest, careful to ensure her hand didn't brush off any of his scars. The ease in which he claimed her was staggering. It had taken Savannah seven months of scheming and manipulation to wrangle herself into his arms, and even then, it had been under duress and protest.

But with her, with Anastasia, her warmth was his warmth.

"I still don't understand," she whispered, "We've known each other only a few _hours._ You're my _boss._ I'm just an intern. One of many. Why are you doing all this? I told you. I warned you. Harry is not a man you want to bring down upon your head. He's more connected than you could possibly imagine. His anonymity is his biggest strength. He's nothing and no-one, everything and everyone. He'll find a way to bring you down. Your entire business empire. Everything you've ever achieved. All because of me. A girl who's essentially lied to you about everything from the moment she met you, which to reiterate, was only a few hours ago. Why? Why do this?"

He stared out the window and felt his jaw tighten reflexively.

He could think of something clever to say, something pithy. Something charming.

Or he could just tell the truth.

He chose the latter.

"I don't know," he admitted softly. "I assure you, it is not something I make a habit out of, interfering in my employee's private affairs. To be perfectly honest, aside from Taylor and Ros, I don't really give that much of a damn about the personal well-being of my staff. It's a rule. I believe in rules, in all things, Miss Steele. And yet," his fingers moved down to caress her cold cheeks, and he smiled a crooked smile down at her, "Here I am. Breaking them all. With you. For you. Because, forgive my familiarity, there's just something about you. Something that draws me to you. As for St. James, he is no longer a factor in your life. I assure you."

She stared up at him in utter and intense bewilderment.

" _You_ are drawn to _me?"_

His lopsided smile was perhaps the most imperfectly perfect thing about him.

It stopped her breath from ever experiencing the world.

"Such ignorance of one's own worth," he whispered with an almost conspiratorial humour. "You surely know that you are a beautiful woman, Miss Steele, a desirable woman." His fingers stroked her cheek and she shuddered and shivered in equal measure. "Beautiful, desirable woman generally attract beautiful, desirable men."

She arched a brow and felt the threat of a smile pull at her lips.

"You think you're beautiful and desirable, Mr Grey?"

A sense of profound and almost historic sadness coated his words as his eyes glowed a soft grey.

"On a cosmetic level, yes. But skin-deep beauty hides a multitude of sins, Anastasia. Those with the darkest, ugliest souls often have the most handsome of faces. The devil was once an angel, as my mother would say. A pretty face is just another weapon when used correctly. You should remember that."

Shock splattered her face as she realised he was talking about himself.

Her mouth opened in protest.

"You're not-"

"We're here now, Miss Steele. So you are not startled, I am telling you now that I've arranged for a doctor to come and give you a once-over. I think I'm guessing correctly when I say you don't want the ordeal of a hospital visit. I will consent to that on the sole provision that you will allow Dr Flynn to assess your physical and mental well-being. Do we have an agreement?"

She gaped.

All of a sudden, he was businessman Christian. Just like that. CEO Grey. In the blink of an eye.

"I don't need a doctor, I-"

"It is either Dr Flynn or the hospital, Anastasia. There is no third option."

She found it in herself, in the midst of the chaos that whirled around her brain, the strength to glare.

"I think I can decide what option I need and-"

"Excellent. I shall inform Dr Flynn that you are expecting him upon his arrival. In the interim, may I escort you inside and see if we can't find you a hot shower and a change of more comfortable clothes? You must be exhausted and wrought, and both those things will do you good." He held out an expectant hand, raised an even more expectant brow, before smiling the upside-down smile that thawed her growing frigidity like boiling water on ice.

"Come."

Dazed by him once again, she held out her hand automatically.

"You're very mercurial," she whispered as he led her from the car, "Has anyone ever told you that?"

He grinned down at her, shutting the door with a soft snap.

"Generally speaking, people tell me only what they think I want to hear. My flaws therefore generally don't come up in day-to-day conversation."

She pursed her lips as he brusquely ordered Taylor to go ahead and open up the garage door.

"Perhaps they should," she suggested tartly, feeling utterly overwhelmed by him, "It might be good for you."

His eyes swirled like a stormy, grey ocean as he gazed down at her, as if enjoying a private joke.

"Yes," he mused, mirth evident in his tone, "Perhaps they should, perhaps it might."

So consumed was she by him that she didn't even notice her surroundings as they walked along. He was accommodating, slowing his pace to match hers, keeping a warm grasp on her shoulders. He would catch her staring at him every now and again, and an odd expression would cross his face. If she had to guess, she would label it as a mixture of sadness and excitement.

Excited sadness.

Her brow crinkled.

There were fucked-up days, there were seriously fucked-up days, and then there was this day.

It took the proverbial biscuit and _then_ some.

Her mouth fell open when she eventually managed to peel her eyes away from his face as he ushered her through a front door that she could have sworn was wider than her kitchen. Blue eyes popped wide in amazement. Glass. Lots of it. A piano. A beautiful one. An open-planned living room and kitchen that was about as large as her apartment times four. The entire place was just so very _him._ Polished, perfected, but in an understated and reserved sort of a way. She turned back to him, her eyes as wide as ever, and shook her head slowly.

"You live _here?"_

He glanced around in confusion and raised a brow.

"Yes. This is my apartment. Well, one of them anyway."

"You make this much money by being in the…uhh, being in the…"

He removed his jacket from her shoulders and tossed it on the sofa with a mixture of bemusement and sternness crossing his face.

"You intern for my company, Miss Steele, and you have no idea what business I am in?"

She shook her head slowly, an odd gleam in her eyes.

"You're not in any business. You're in every business. You're a dabbler, and a good one. You have a philanthropic side that you reluctantly share with the world in the hopes that others with similar pockets to yours will dig deep and donate to your passion which is the banishment of world hunger. You're currently focussing your attention on the green effort, recognising that both your moral and business needs can be satiated by joining the renewable effort."

His face remained impassive but his eyes flickered with something she couldn't recognise.

"Someone's done their homework," he murmured quietly, "Impressive, Miss Steele, impressive."

She managed a grin that he could tell she was too tired, traumatised and tentatively tearful to feel.

"I've always been a pretty good student."

He nodded silently and felt indecisiveness wash over him. What should he do now? Tell her to sit? Tell her to go lay down? Wait for Dr Flynn with her? Let her wait for him alone? His brow furrowed. Luckily, she took the decision out of his hands.

"If it's ok, could I grab that shower before the doctor comes?"

He swallowed and tried to find a delicacy he had never before wanted or needed to locate.

"Anastasia…perhaps it would be better to wait until the doctor has gone, now that I think of it. It might be prudent to collect any possible evidence of your ordeal from your person and your clothing. It could prove useful should you choose to bring criminal proceedings against…" His eyes hardened, his jaw tightened and his stomach jolted. "That man," he finished, somewhat lamely, not wishing to subject her to his name.

She glanced down at her clothes and her body as if she had never seen them before.

"Criminal proceedings," she repeated quietly, before and to his great alarm, tears sprung up in her eyes. "There is never, ever going to be any criminal proceedings. Things like that don't work with a man like him. He's like a snake. He can slither his way out of anything. I've _seen_ him do it. I'm not the first girl, I won't be the last. No judge or jury could ever stop him. He's the most dangerous man I have ever met. Normal measures do not apply to Harry St. James." Her tears flowed down her cheeks as he stood ramrod straight in horror at what he had caused. If he thought he knew guilt-born horror in that moment, he had another thing coming. Before he could prepare himself, warn himself, she had bolted forwards and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek.

Stepping back with a gratitude that made him wish for a slow death, she smiled her first small, but happy smile.

"That's why I can never thank you enough for having your men do whatever they did with him."

She turned on her heel, determining to find a bathroom and wash Harry off of her for the last time. Calling over her shoulder as she went, she had no idea she was landing a sucker punch of the most intense and violent guilt into Christian's stomach.

"Whatever happens, I'm safe from him now. And that's because of you, Mr Grey."

….

TBC

…..


	13. Chapter 13

His voice burned with urgency.

"Taylor. Please tell me that you fucking have something on this prick. Anastasia thinks we have him in chains or some shit. She has no idea and I have no idea how I'm going to keep her from gaining an idea. I need to know exactly what you're doing about St. James and exactly what you're going to do about St. James."

Silence crackled on the line.

Christian cursed lowly under his breath. Ana was asleep, it now being five hours after her shower and borderline instantaneous unconsciousness and he was still up, pacing his penthouse in the early hours in bare feet and exhausted agitation. Taylor had been dutifully picking up his calls on the half hour, every half hour, assuring him that he was doing everything he could. And now, all of a sudden, he wanted to play the shrinking violet.

"Taylor? Answer me. I'm in no mood for a crisis of faith right now."

The chuckle that trickled through the receiver made the hairs on the back of his neck stand, a shard of ice slide into the spot where his soul should be and set the nerve endings in his back teeth alight. Drinking in an inordinately deep breath, he found himself in a time-suspended state, desperately trying to force air into his flaccid, non-responsive lungs. His voice when it eventually dripped from his lips was, to his infallible credit, his usual smooth and succinct vernacular.

"St. James, you're the talk of the town tonight."

He could hear the pristinely white smile as he strode forcefully without actually sprinting to the room Anastasia was sleeping in. The room many a woman had slumbered in, but none that had evoked such a reaction within him as she. His eyes fluttered softly shut when he saw her slender frame under the covers, sleeping peacefully. Gripping the doorframe so tightly that his knuckles protruded with a ghastly whiteness through the skin, he felt nausea engulf him.

"I do like to be a catalyst for conversation, Mr Grey, particularly yours."

His sneer was burning into Christian's eyelids with every passing second.

"Now, given the indecent hour we find ourselves in, perhaps we should get down to the nitty gritty of the matter. We are both businessmen, after all. Both appreciative of the value of time. And time really _is_ the commodity in this deal brokerage, Mr Grey, it truly is. So, I need to know, are you listening very carefully as you watch Harper's chest rise and fall from the doorway? Or is her remarkable bosom going to prove too distracting for our transaction at hand?"

If Grey men were to faint, he would have been splayed upon the floor, right there and right then.

Even he couldn't hide the cracklings of raw emotions in his voice.

"You have cameras in my home? People in my business? Jesus Christ, St. James, who the _fuck_ are you and what the hell do you want from me?"

Harry breathed in the fear like a hardened drug addict would snort cocaine.

"Now now, Mr Grey, no need for histrionics. I did warn you. I truly did. I gave you the option of an out, you did not take it. I warned you what and who I was, and you did not heed it. So now we play the game. Tit for tat, like for like. You may have forgotten in the heat of this wonderful moment, but this is not my phone. It's the steadfastly loyal Jason Taylor's. He can't come to the phone right now, he is shall we say, indisposed. He will stay in that condition, worsening by the hour, until such time as I have sufficient reason to revitalise and return him."

His peal of chilling laughter stilled the very air in Christian's windpipe.

"You are a clever man, even I will accede to that fact. So, can you take a very educated guess as to what I want in return for your prized poodle? Your most treasured guard dog? I think you do. I think you'll guess the right guess. Would you like to place your bet now or shall we play with each other a little longer first? I truly don't mind, you are such a very entertaining toy. A custom piece, if you will. Remind me to thank Mrs Elena Lincoln for the fascinating creature you've become, won't you? What a truly wonderful woman."

Red, hot and bitter bile burned Christian's windpipe as he struggled for air.

"Or perhaps I should show some unusual mercy and place your bets for you? I've had a very trying day and leniency isn't at the top of my to-do list, but even men like us can throw a dog a bone every now and again. So, Mr Grey, here is your bone. You will deliver Miss Steele nee Wakefield in your Harvard t-shirt with the sentimental rip in the collar, to a location which will be forwarded to your phone. Try not to wake her, she gets oh so irritable when she's woken from her slumber. I'm sure you have some toys that will help maintain her sweet sleep."

The frequency crackled in a paler-than-pale Christian's ear.

"Upon receipt of my property and the conclusion of a _thorough_ inventory of my goods, Mr Taylor will be returned to you. If you are prompt and punctual, he shouldn't suffer any long-term effects from his time with me. If you are not, well, like I said…you are an intelligent man. The time has come for a decision. Do you protect the lying, cheating and unfaithful little harlot you've known for one day, or do you save the man who's given you his all, every day, for four years?"

His grin wafted down the line.

"Decisions, decisions," he murmured in a sick sing-song intonation, "Hard to make, harder not to make. I find time-limits a helpful aid in choosing my path. So, I will give you exactly one hour from the moment I hang up this phone to meet me at the assigned location and deliver to me my most prized possession. Should you fail to present said package in time, I will take that as your answer and Mr Taylor here shall be the one to pay out on your poor decision making."

Perspiration popped at Christian's temples, slowly soaking into his auburn hair.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock, Mr Grey. Hope to see you soon."

The line went dead.

Christian swallowed down a mouthful of molten fear. He was being watched, that much was clear as day, and he was all about the front. He had built his life upon a façade, the foundations of which flitted between castles of sand and beams of steel, he could work a mask when needed. And that mask had never been more important that in the current, spine-tingling, heart-stopping moment. His gaze wandered over the sleeping Anastasia and before he knew what he was doing, he had padded softly to her side. Grinning a grin that he sure as shit didn't feel for big brother, he leant over her and pressed a gentle kiss upon her forehead. Ignoring the impossible-to-quash electricity that sparked at the touch, he straightened up and squared his shoulders.

If St. James wanted a game, he would give him a game.

He would give him the game of his fucking life.

…

TBC

…


	14. Chapter 14

"Do you think he bought it, Sir?"

Harry angled his head to consider his very own version of Jason Taylor. He smiled the smile that terrified and horrified his employees in equal measure. Leaning back in his leather desk chair, phone still in hand, he nodded slowly and thoughtfully.

"Yes, Andrew, I rather think he did. You see, the Christian Greys of this world pride themselves of needing nothing and nobody, operating under total and unyielding autonomy at all times. They hide behind a mask of cold disconnect. But under all those puffed-up rich boys' chests, is a bleeding heart. He thinks he's untouchable, but I saw the bond between he and his grease monkey back at Harper's apartment. He cares for Taylor. He'll come for him. I'm sure of it."

Andrew Gluckman, the long suffering right-hand man of St. James, stared.

"But we don't have him. I mean, sure, I can hack into anyone's phone and intercept their calls Sir, but I can't make them bodily appear so we can use them as barter in an illegal transaction."

Harry's posture stiffened and Andrew immediately regretted his choice of words.

"Yes," he murmured slowly, as if speaking to a rather dim-witted infant. "But Grey _thinks_ we have Taylor, and neither of them can call the other without us hijacking the signal. Jason is very diligently hunting me down on the utterly wrong side of town, thanks to your carefully placed bait. We have hours before he realises that the text he received from Grey not to disturb he and his newly acquired _princess_ doesn't hold up. By then, we will have Harper in our grasp and our time in this flea-bitten excuse for a city will come to a merciful end."

He stared dreamily into the distance.

"And Harper will once again be mine. Her retraining will be so very _exhilarating."_

His titter of chilling laughter stirred up a pool of acrid sickness in Andrew's gut.

"For me anyway."

Not too far away, Christian's cell pinged with an address that would bring him to an abandoned industrial complex downtown. Struggling to control his breathing, he digested the information and meticulously began to time-manage the singular hour he'd been given to swap Anastasia for Jason. He bit down the unreasonable rage he was beginning to feel towards his right-hand-man. Taylor was ex-special forces for fucks sake. How could he let himself be taken down by a sadist in a five thousand dollar suit? It was harder to bite back down the anger he was feeling for himself. For allowing himself to give a shit about Taylor in the first place. He was staff, and he didn't care about staff.

It didn't make sense.

But he didn't have time to dwell on that now.

He'd drafted in the best security guy in Seattle to do a sweep of his home and cars for the surveillance St. James was manipulating. No one said no to him when the price was right, no matter the hour. Ken and his groggy team were currently scanning every inch of Escala as he and Sawyer struggled to come up with a game plan. Luke wasn't Jason, but he was experienced and level-headed and Christian was grateful for him in that moment. He looked odd in the pristine confines of his bug-free office. He was used to Taylor being the only one permitted within his private spaces.

"What do you think?" he asked urgently, "What do we do?"

Sawyer spoke in slowly in his deep and reassuring tone.

"We play along. For now. We bring Miss Steele to the location under the guise of agreeing to the transaction. He didn't say you had to come alone and he doesn't expect you to. We will bring six of your best men. The goal is to isolate St. James. From everything you've told me, Mr Grey, the man's greatest weakness is his own arrogance. That's our in. You're going to need to exploit him into orchestrating this hand-over on a one-on-one basis. He tells his men to stand down, you tell yours to do the same thing. I won't travel in the car with you, but I will be there. Waiting. When he produces Taylor, you're going to have to produce Miss Steele."

He winced at the look his boss threw at him.

"I know, it's not all that palatable but it's the best procedural outlook. When you produce Miss Steele, I will have her covered. I assure you. No harm will come to her, I simply will not allow it. Your main prerogative is to allow me to worry about her, whilst you worry about St. James. He's going to want to play with you. Humiliate you. He has to. You've made this personal for him. He's a psychopath, he feels nothing only the misery, pain and discomfort of others. You need to allow him to feed off yours to corner him. We need Jason freed and whole first, Miss Steele second. As soon as Taylor walks from St. James…then I will make my move."

Christian stared.

"And your move is what?"

Sawyer didn't hesitate.

"A bullet between the eyes, Mr Grey."

The tycoon waited for the sense of shock, revulsion and moral outrage to engulf him. He waited for the tirade of legal repercussions and reputational warfare to drip from his lips. He waited, but it never came. Instead he found his head nodding with an ease that failed to terrify him and speaking words that failed to disgust him.

"You're sure that's the only move?"

Luke's nod rang with conviction.

"It is the only way you are ever truly going to be rid of him. The only way."

Christian didn't argue. His curt nod was his overall acceptance as he suddenly strode from his office, Anastasia's panicked voice reaching his ears. She was cowing against his living room wall as Ken stood a respectable distance away, trying his level best to calm her down. Pushing past him, Christian swept to where she stood and gathered her face into his hands. Staring down at her, his voice was low and calm and it put an instant end to her mounting terror.

"Anastasia. Calm down. He needs to check you for bugs. He will not harm you."

He ran a thumb over her jaw.

"I will never allow harm to come to you. If you believe anything, believe that."

Still clad in his Harvard shirt, she stared up at him and her trembling body instantly relaxed. He removed his hands as she nodded and jerked his head towards Ken permissively. The bewildered technician padded cautiously forward and began his examination, with Christian steadfastly remaining by Ana's side. For the first time in his life, he reached down to hold a woman's hand not to display possessive rights, but because he wanted to comfort the paling Anastasia as an uncomfortable Ken's hands roved over her. The clothing came up empty and he was just about to turn away with his complex device when something caught his eye and his ear.

His eyes bulged and his own complexion paled to match Ana's.

Christian felt a foreboding sensation twist in his stomach.

Ken's voice was smothered in shock. Suddenly, he reached out and placed an odd looking piece of fabric over Ana's arm, and lowered his octaves dramatically. Christian snarled at the seemingly unnecessary and downright bizarre contact, but Ken doggedly ignored him.

"Miss Steele, have you had any recent injections? In your left upper arm?"

Her hand instinctively rose to where the small scarred bump protruded and nodded. Her voice was thin and quiet, the exhaustion of her ordeal beginning to utterly wear her down.

"Just before I escaped Harry, he had the Doctor give me some flu shots. About fourteen or fifteen months ago now I guess. Why?"

Ken glanced at Christian who levelled him with a hard stare.

"My scanner is picking up a live frequency from your arm, Miss Steele. There is some sort of chip or implant in your soft tissue. I think…I think it's at a depth where it could provide audio recordings of everything within a reasonable distance to you. Probably has a GPS tracker as well. It would explain how this man seemed to have eyes and ears in this premises. We've found absolutely nothing in the actual apartment, Mr Grey, but I'd be willing to bet the source of the intrusion is in Miss Steele's arm. As for the perpetrator in question seeming to know where you were standing upon receiving the demand call, I rather think he was hedging his bets. The implant has a very strong frequency. The chances of hearing two sets of oxygen intake are quite high."

He paled a little further and shook his head.

"I've been doing this for eleven years and I've never seen anything like it. The device needs to come out, Miss Steele, Mr Grey. If I'm right, the kind of chip I suspect is in play needs to be changed every not and then, before it starts to deteriorate in the subject's body."

He glanced back to Anastasia who was beginning to sway on her feet with shock.

"Do I have your consent to remove it, Miss Steele? I'm careful, I assure you."

She nodded with tears glistening in her eyes, desperation echoing in her voice.

"Get it out of me! Please, please get it…him out of me."

Ken nodded and thought quickly.

"Ok, ok Miss Steele. It's going to be alright. I've covered your arm so that our conversation would not be recorded. When I remove the cloth I think it would be best that Mr Grey talks loudly about the room in his home we have just entered. A private room he uses for business purposes which is impervious to any and all man-made inventions. No cell signal, TV reception, no nothing. When I remove the chip, the frequency will go dead. For whatever plan you're all working on, I think it would be best if this man believes it is because you're in a safe room of sorts and not because we've found his hidden implant. Are we in agreement?"

Christian made a mental note to triple the man's payment as he nodded in tandem with Anastasia. He recalled the conversation they'd had about his Harvard shirt, about the rip in the collar. He'd been listening to it al. He felt sick. But he pulled his shit together. He spoke loudly and proudly about his non-existent private room as Ken removed the cloth. Sawyer's recommendation on how to deal with St. James was sealed in stone the moment he injected Ana with a mild numbing agent, before producing a scalpel that he handled with an ease that suggested a prior career. Four minutes later, Anastasia was bandaged up and a blinking chip no bigger than a thumbnail rested in Ken's hand.

With one flick of his wrist, the chip was on the floor, crushed under his boot.

For the first time in his life, Christian felt out of his depth. Squeezing Ana's clammy hand tighter still, he suddenly doubted his ability to keep her safe. St. James was the sickest, smartest son-of-a-bitch he had ever come across in his entire life. The lengths he was willing to go to inflict misery upon a woman who simply didn't want him were bone-chilling. He had followed her here, into his home, via a tiny little microchip that had revealed all to him. That's how he knew about his dinner proposal back at the office that seemed to be a lifetime ago now. That's how he knew _everything._

He was the sophisticated sort of sadist.

Time was ticking and a jolt of horror scorched him as he realised they needed to leave within the next five to six minutes. As much as he inexplicably cared for Anastasia, Taylor was his most trusted and valued employee. He had given him years of loyal and unwavering service and he couldn't let him perish at the hands of Harry fucking St. James. Looking down at Ana, he prepared to ask of her the unthinkable, feeling sicker by the second. Taylor needed him. He carved that mantra into his brain as he opened his mouth slowly.

"Anastasia. I know I have no business asking this of you but I need your help."

He grimaced and squeezed her hand tighter still.

"You see, Taylor is-"

Something rustled behind them and a throat was cleared, a familiar trait.

"Right here, Sir."

…

TBC

A/N: Re Gumper Review: Thank you! The timeline was indeed skewed, I've edited it to fix the continuity issue. Thank you very much for pointing it out! Appreciated.

…...


	15. Chapter 15

Christian's eyes were saucer-like. He watched in amazement as Taylor strode fully into the room. If he were uncomfortable that all eyes were on him, he didn't show it. Ignoring everyone but Christian, he landed in front of his young boss and took a deep breath. It wasn't often he had to admit to a lapse in judgement, but when he did, he didn't hesitate. And this particular moment was no time for indecision.

"I need to apologise, Mr Grey, for a mistaken interpretation that could have proved disastrous. I received a text that was supposedly from you. It told me that you had received a tip from another of your men that St. James was in the East district and that I was to focus my attentions there. It further instructed that you wished to receive no further updates on the investigation until you called and asked for them, as Miss Steele and yourself required rest. I didn't think to double think the message. I should have. I don't know how many streets I walked before I realised that you would never rest until St. James was in our hands and Miss Steele was safe."

He swallowed.

"St. James must have hacked our signal. It was the only explanation. I couldn't call you and I imagine you couldn't call me. As soon as I realised that, I saw his plan. I would've bet money there and then that he contacted you stating he had me hostage and that he was prepared to offer a clean swap. That he was using me to lure you into a trap with Miss Steele as the leverage. As soon I saw realised his intentions, I hightailed it back here to Escala, hoping that you hadn't already left."

His eyes roved around the room and he read it with ease.

"I see you were just about to."

His eyes clouded with shame.

"Again, Mr Grey, I am so-"

Christian held up a silencing hand. Taylor was instantly stricken dumb. Ana teetered on the balls of her feet in the wake of his singularly commanding gesture. The mogul's eyes never left his right-hand-man as he spoke slowly and with his trademark clear and concise diction.

"There will be no need for apologies, Taylor. This is an unusual and difficult situation and everyone's nerves are frayed. I am simply grateful that you are here and unhurt." For the first time since he had taken on the stoic Jason, he truly felt gratitude for someone else's safety. "We will say no more on the matter. What we do need to discuss is how we can use this to our advantage. St. James thinks that we think he has you. The fact that we now know he has no leverage is a serious advantage that needs pressing."

Jason visibly relaxed but only for a nanosecond.

"When is the meet supposed to take place?" he asked, returning swiftly to his capable manner and beckoning Sawyer out from the shadows and to his side. Grimacing tersely, Christian glanced at his watch and realised that time had never been more of the essence.

"If we're to make it without arousing suspicion, we need to leave right now."

Taylor immediately got to work. He commanded and delegated to his men with a quiet calm that washed over everyone in the room. Christian used this hand-over of control to focus his attentions on Anastasia. His heart twanged when he took in her paler than pale face, her wobbling stance and the round eyes that betrayed the toll her ordeal was truly having upon her.

"Mrs Jones."

She materialised like a ghost. Always on-call and always willing. He glanced at her with the same gratitude he had felt when looking at Jason and knew he was lucky to have such people under his employ. He gestured towards Ana and the kindly housekeeper was instantly filled with motherly concern when she saw the gaunt girl in the Harvard t-shirt.

"Mrs Jones, this is Miss Anastasia Steele. I do not have time to get into the details at the moment, but she has undergone a terrible trauma and requires rest and security. I need to leave as does Taylor and co, but I need reassurances that she will be catered for in my absence. I'm sure I can trust you to take good care of her?"

Gail smiled the slow, soft smile that reminded Christian of his own mother.

"Yes, Mr Grey. Have no worries. She'll be right as rain with me."

If he was the hugging type, which he most certainly was not, he would have squeezed his housekeeper to him in that moment. As it was he merely offered a curt nod which she knew was his version of such an embrace, and turned on his heel. It pained him, it physically pained him to leave Anastasia in that moment but he knew he had to. If she were ever to be truly safe and free, he had to leave and demand that safety and freedom. By whatever means necessary. He didn't have time for goodbyes.

Within three minutes he, Taylor and Sawyer were in the town car. The other men were following in less descript cars three vehicles back. Jason was speaking lowly and rapidly and for once, Christian was willing to be the one to obey orders rather than give them.

"Luke's plan to lure him into a one-on-one situation is the best strategy. He obviously cannot be allowed to see me. We will stop this car in three and a half minutes and I will swap out with Davidson." His eyes lingered on Christian's in the rear-view mirror. "He's a fine man and an ex-Marine. I trust him with my life. He will drive and Luke will remain in the passenger seat and you, Mr Grey, must remain in the back. When we arrive, St. James will most likely be out in the lot waiting for us. He is going to want to see Miss Steele. You are going to want to see me. Clearly, neither of you can produce what the other wants and is expecting. So you must play the game for as long as you can and you must antagonise him into agreeing to a private meeting before the exchange takes place.

He twisted in his seat to face the impassive Christian.

"Luke and Davidson will remain by the car. The other men will man the perimeter unseen in the event he tries to get away. I will be flanking you. You will not see or hear me and neither will St. James. If the meeting is to take place in a private room, do your best to leave the door ajar. But do not panic if you cannot. I will get in. Keep him talking for as long as you can. It's going to take some work to get past his men. When I get there…you must leave. You must not be caught up in what happens next."

It was rare, oh-so-very _rare_ for someone to dictate to Christian Grey.

And it was a fucking miracle that the control-obsessed tycoon merely nodded his consent with a grim look marring his handsome face. Seemingly satisfied, Taylor halted the car and waited for fifty-three seconds to hand the vehicle over to Thomas Davidson. Christian vaguely recognised the burly man as an extra security measure they employed now and then. He appreciated that he didn't try to engage in any form of conversation other than to offer a nod of his head.

Within another three minutes, they were there.

An abandoned warehouse that shrieked with neglect loomed large as the smooth town car crunched upon the gravel outside it. True to Taylor's intuition, there and flanked on either side by a very large goon, was the psychotic Harry St. James. His grin was Cheshire cat like. His aura was relaxed. This was a man who thought he held all the cards. His fall from grace consumed Christian as he slipped from the back of the car with the same composure as he held when negotiating multi-million-dollar deals over breakfast.

Luke and Thomas flanked him rigidly as he strode purposefully along.

St. James' eyes widened with a serpentine slickness as the object of his obsessive desires approached. Soon, they were face-to-face, three-on-three. Both men knew the other had more security in the background. It was simply good business. The pre-dawn air whipped up around them and tossed Christian's copper hair this way and that.

"Grey."

"St. James."

Harry smiled a malevolent smile that sent a shiver down Davidson and Sawyer's spines. Christian was unaffected. He found similarities with himself in this man. True, whilst St. James was batshit crazy and made his playroom look like a PG movie screening, they were of the same ilk. They were both cold, unfeeling bastards and the more they went through life the firmer they secured their respective places in hell. What did Flynn call it again? Oh yes. Self-loathing.

Christian called it self-awareness.

"You have her bundled in the back of your town car?"

"I have her where I need to have her. I trust you have Taylor where you need to have him?"

St. James, to his credit, was a flawless liar.

"I do, I do. He's ready for the transfer and most eager to see you. And as time really is the most valuable commodity, I was hoping to take care of business as quickly as possible. Please instruct your men to bring Miss Wakefield to me and I will instruct mine to bring Mr Taylor to you."

Christian played his role like a thespian born for the stage.

"Miss Steele will be brought to you when you show me that Jason has been unharmed and treated with reasonable dignity. There is no reason why we cannot conclude our business right here and now. Even the birds aren't up yet. Show me him and I will show you her. Until then, she will remain where she is and I will continue to contemplate the error of my ways in creating such a fuss for a simple fuck."

St. James' gaze was alight with something unknown to man.

"You are finally realising that she is simply not worth it?"

The younger man shrugged.

"I'm Christian Grey. I can have any woman I want. Why would I want one that brings down this level of a shitstorm on my head and refuses to blow me? What, pray tell, would be the point? You can have her back. Just make sure she never comes back to Seattle again. Boston is yours, Washington is mine."

Harry inclined his head with a grace that made Christian ill.

"Very well," he whispered, "I will ensure that she never comes back here. She will never leave my side or sight again. You may rule over the Washington scene with an iron fist. I am very glad to see that you realise you cannot go toe-to-toe with a man like me. Knowing one's weaknesses is a valuable trait, Mr Grey."

"That it is. Now, shall we get this business over and done with. Show me Jason and you can take your Miss whatever her name is back with you and get the hell out of my sight. But I haven't got all day. I am a busy man and this has already taken up far too much of my time. I enjoy a pissing contest as much as the next man but this has gone far enough. I'm not prepared to let a valuable employee suffer for a frigid little girl. Besides, I value loyalty and discretion above all else in a submissive. The things she's been running her mouth off about you are definitely things I don't want her repeating about me."

Harry's breath stilled in his throat and his teeth bared back in a snarl.

"What's the little bitch been saying about me? Tell me. Tell me now."

Christian threw a delicate look around the assorted posse and raised a brow.

"With all due respect, this is not the kind of conversation we need an audience for. We are select men who employ discreet staff, but there's no need to overburden them. I'll tell you what she said, it's pretty interesting actually, but I'm not prepared to have that kind of a conversation out in God's morning air with anybody and everybody listening in."

Harry's short and sharp nod was instantaneous.

"Come with me," he commanded, pivoting and striding off in the direction of the warehouse. He gave his men a knowing glance and Christian threw a similar look at the secretly impressed Davidson and Sawyer. No-one saw the Taylor sized shadow slip through the cracks. He had been trained by the best of the best to be unseen, and all St. James' men put together were no match for him.

Christian kept up the brisk pace with ease until he was shown into a small, windowless room. Where there once had been a door, there was no longer. He closed his eyes in thanks for that small mercy and allowed St. James to posture in front of him for a moment before speaking.

"Nice place you've got here."

Harry glared.

"Spare me, Grey," he spat, "Just tell me what the tramp's told you."

He was afraid.

He was afraid of what he might know.

"She told me that you were a long-time sufferer of erectile dysfunction," Christian lied smoothly, "And that's why your relationship was so strained. You were an average to middling dominant, but you were shit in the sack and she was frustrated. You got pills but they didn't work. So then you tried to have surgery and that didn't work either. She said that's why you're so fucking insane. You've spent years not being able to get it up."

Harry's pupils dilated in shock.

"What?" he screamed, "What's she fucking said? That's bullshit. That's complete and utter bullshit. I don't have a-"

"She also said that you struggle with your technique," Christian butted in, beginning to enjoy himself. "Said you don't know one end of a cane from the other, you can't use a flogger to save your life and that the one time she convinced you to take a cat-o-nine-tails to her, you ended up cutting _yourself._ She said the best you could offer was a paddling that didn't tickle her and the odd spanking that she couldn't quite remember."

He raised a brow.

"On behalf of our kind, St. James, you have my condolences for your troubles."

Realising he was being conned, Harry's face flooded with fury.

"You stupid bastard," he hissed, "I'll have your precious fucking Taylor cut into ribbons for this. He's-"

"Right here, St. James, he's right here."

Christian smiled a smile that was so rare it took Jason by surprise. He stepped fully into the room with his gun raised directly at Harry's temple and grinned a lopsided grin at his boss.

"Sorry I took so long Mr Grey, I had a few obstacles in my way."

"That's quite alright Taylor, Harry and I were just having a little chat."

The colour drained from Harry's face. He knew he'd been taken for a ride and he knew his men were down. Fear gripped him. He didn't have a gun on him. He'd been too arrogant to think he needed one, and he was a pretty lousy shot anyway. His mouth ran dry as Christian moved smoothly to block the door and as Taylor's gun trained with even more focus on his head.

"Mr Grey," Jason said quietly, "Our agreement in the car kicks in now."

Reasonable.

Very reasonable.

He was supposed to leave and let Jason have at it. He could hear footsteps approaching and knew they belonged to his own people. He allowed the arriving Sawyer and Davidson into the room and relished the terror that screamed in Harry's eyes at the sight of them. Yes, he should go. There were some things that media-attracting-millionaires ought not to be messed up in. And yet, he remained rooted to the spot. In the distance he could hear the sounds of car doors being opened and closed before engines pierced the morning air. St James' men were scarpering. He would ensure they were bought off and their silence secure but in that moment, he couldn't be completely rational.

He wanted to see Harry suffer for what he had done to Anastasia.

Really fucking suffer.

"Mr Grey," Taylor urged, breaking into his reverie. "Please. You must leave."

Yes.

He must.

But he couldn't.

Harry dropped to his knees, his cowardice coming out thick and fast. He pleaded for his life. His words were muttered and mumbled and he promised the moon and the stars if they would just let him leave. Christian watched him grovel with a sense of satisfaction so strong, he swayed under its intensity. Taylor glanced over his shoulder and despaired when he saw his boss still rooted to the spot.

"Mr Grey! You have to _leave._ There are some things that can't be unseen."

True.

Very true.

But he couldn't.

Harry whimpered even louder at the pronouncement. Gone was the slick, suave businessman who enjoyed torturing and abusing women who placed their trust in him. In its place was a sickening shadow of a man with no more courage and dignity than a cockroach under interrogation. Christian knew he should leave and expect a full report on his desk from his men. But he couldn't. No more than he could stop the words that dropped from his mouth from falling.

"Kill him, Taylor. Now. In front of me. And that's an order."

Sawyer and Davidson exchanged looks of incredulity as Jason shook his head in despair. This was not the deal. Mr Grey was a man who thought he had not one ounce of goodness in him and he was a man who was wrong. Seeing something like he was demanding to see would damage him in ways he couldn't possibly foresee or understand. He had never served. He didn't understand that the dead never truly leave you. They linger for the rest of your days and make your head their home.

"Mr Grey-"

"You can either do it or I can, Taylor. Either way, I'm not leaving."

Silence rebounded off the walls before Harry broke it by begging for his life.

"Please," he moaned, "Please, please do not do this. We are not _murderers._ I will leave her alone. You will never, ever see me again. I will leave Washington immediately and never return. She's nothing. I can forget about her. I will forget about her. You have nothing to fear from me. You are a public figure, you cannot be involved in backroom murders for fucks sake man. Let me go and no one will ever hear a word of this. Let me go and it will be like we never, ever met."

Christian raised a brow and walked slowly to look down on the rodent.

"But it will," he countered softly. "It will be like we met. Because every time I look at Anastasia I will see what you've done to her. Just like if I ever see my friend Grace again, I'll know what you did to her and god knows how many more women who trusted you. I thought I was like you, Harry, I thought I was no better than you. But I was wrong. I'm a sick, fifty shades of fucked up bastard. That is true. But I'm a better man than you. And that's why I can't let you go. Because a man like you will never, ever change and by your own admission, the justice system cannot chain you. There will be another Anastasia and I cannot have that on my conscience."

He stepped back and beckoned to Jason.

"So, this is goodbye Mr St. James. I have no doubt I will see you in hell."

This time Taylor knew better to argue.

The opening mouth of Harry St. James was never to be closed again as a close-range bullet pierced his skull and smashed into the soft tissue of his brain. Sprawling backwards on the filthy floor, his teeth glinted around the words he never got to say as a thick stream of crimson blood seeped from his head. Christian felt nothing but relief as his life trickled away with every droplet of blood. He gave Jason a look that no one else could understand and turned to Sawyer with a raised brow.

"Take me home."

As they swept through the empty D.C. streets, Christian half-heartedly listened to Luke's experienced instructions on how to shower and what to do with his clothes. He would do as he was told, but his mind was not on evidence control at that moment in time. Taylor and Davidson would deal with the remains of St. James and make it like they were never there and he would scrub his body raw. But he had something else to do first. Something much more important than doing his part to avoid a life-sentence in federal lockup.

He had to kiss Anastasia Steele and tell her everything was going to be ok.

…

TBC

…


	16. Chapter 16

Mrs Jones was the first person he met as he barrelled off the elevator.

Her face stopped him in his tracks. Gail was the closest thing he had to a surrogate mother and though he'd never show it, she had an entrenched position in his cold cardiac area. The popping anxiety that bled from her eyes was one of the few sights that could have delayed him then and there from getting to Anastasia as quickly as possible.

"Mrs Jones?" he greeted urgently, "What is it?"

The kindly woman looked at him with such despair that he did something he'd never once even thought of doing in his commercial tenure. As his hand went to rest on her left shoulder, the shock of the gesture seemed to loosen her lips and she spoke rapidly and urgently.

"Mr Grey. I'm sorry, I know you left me with her, but it's Miss Steele. She seems to have, well, there's a little situation in the master bathroom. I've tried to get her out and I've tried to get her to sleep or eat, but she's not hearing me. I don't think she can hear anything right now. I didn't know whether to call a Doctor or not. She doesn't seem willing to allow anyone to… touch her, so I thought I'd better not, but maybe you will. I think you should go to her. Now."

Christian's eyes widened as he digested her words.

The master bathroom was one he rarely used, preferring the en suite of his own bedroom. As he approached it, he could hear water running at a ferocious pace. Practically sprinting the last few steps to the great oak door, he shoved it in with little delicacy. The blast of steam that hit him full-on was like an intensive sauna treatment. Blinking through the burning fog, his eyes blurrily made out the hunched form of a t-shirt clad slender frame on the shower floor. A dripping brunette head was bowed into raised knees and the figure stirred not an inch at his entrance. His voice was drowned out by the roaring water as he stared in shock for a brief moment.

 _"_ _Shit."_

He approached slowly and with extreme caution. For two very good reasons. The first being that he knew startling her would be disastrous. The second being that he hadn't the sweetest fucking clue how to deal with emotional females. Kicking off his shoes as he went, he padded silently to the side of the expansive shower. And then it happened. For the first time in his life, he wasn't a critical thinking, calculating CEO to the stars.

The water cascaded upon his copper hair, turning it dark with wetness.

He sat and wrapped his strong arms around her bowed torso from the back. She flinched and whimpered with a broken, watery gurgle. But when she recognised his scent, every muscle, tissue and sinew within her relaxed. The waterfall of intense heat capsuled them. He knew then and there that was why she was sitting there. For her, it was safe. The only safe place she could find. An impossible sadness gripped him as he silently held the broken beauty. As his hands nestled around her stomach he knew instinctively that she had been too strong, for too long, and today had been her breaking point. Gently pushing her saturated hair from her right ear, his mouth tickled her skin as his whisper trickled into her brain in tandem with the dripping water.

"St. James is gone, Anastasia. He's dead and he's never coming back."

He was taking a momentous risk and he knew it. He still didn't know this girl from a hole in the wall. And he'd essentially admitted that he was in some way complicit with St. James' demise. But he didn't care. For an NDA wielding, contract touting millionaire, he just didn't care. The girl with the scars that ran too deep was all-consuming. She left room for nothing else. It made absolutely no sense, was stupid in the extreme, but he knew he would kill a thousand Harry St. James' if it were to keep her safe.

"He's dead?" she gurgled, barely daring to believe, "Clinically dead?"

His nose nuzzled against her cascade of dark hair.

"Deader than dead, you have my word. He can never hurt you again."

She shuddered. Years of abuse cascading inside her.

" _How?"_

He hesitated. Letting her know the creature was dead was one thing, adding to the cemetery of misery in her head with the details, was quite another. Her hands wetly slicked to his, slender upon broad, light upon dark. She squeezed gently, but the urgency she needed to convey burned him. His eyes lowered to her soaked back and his mouth was opening before he could control it. Taylor would be far from impressed.

"Let's just say that no man is bulletproof, Anastasia."

A small sob tore from her throat. His eyes widened. Was she… _sad_ that the bastard was dead? For the first time, the true folly of his actions slapped him in the face. He, CEO of GEH, had just confessed to his own employee of five minutes that he'd hand or part in the murder of her ex-Dom come sadist. His heart began to hammer with painful urgency. His fight or flight reflex was kicking in. She was suddenly a tonne weight in his arms and he needed to extricate himself from her, call in the lawyers, lock himself in his study and scream at his impulsivity.

Her anguished _"thank you, Jesus, thank you"_ therefore came as a pleasant shock.

She was suddenly featherweight in his arms once more. His eyes flitted shut under the burden of relief that assailed him. She leaned into him, her head resting on his broad shoulder and her tear-stained face looking at him in shocked awe. Gazing down at her, a terrifying affection gripped him. This girl made him vulnerable. He had known her for less time than he knew his new mailroom boy. And he had literally just _killed_ for her. Sure, he didn't pull the trigger. But he ordered it. And in the eyes of the law, he was just as guilty. The terror truly engulfed him when he realised he'd do it again and again to keep this mysterious Miss Steele safe from harm.

"You are the kindest man I have ever known."

His eyes bulged at her misguided and downright inaccurate words. He was not a kind man. He was not a good man. He was a mercurial, possessive and controlling man. He took what he wanted, where he wanted, and to hell with the wake of destruction he may or may not leave in his wake. One didn't get to where he was, at his age, by being a _kind man._ He knew she had to know the truth. She had already been so damaged, maltreated to the point where she had clambered into this shower for safety, that he couldn't lie to her.

"I am not a kind man, Anastasia. You need to know that."

She shook her head and looked up at him with adoration and shower spray leaking from her eyes in equal measure.

"You saved me."

His head swayed from side to side as frustration welled inside him.

"You saved yourself. You made it here. You escaped."

Her small smile was a surprise. Her hands flitted down to his once more and she slipped her small palm into his. He closed his eyes in despair. Her touch was an addiction he could feel brewing like his morning coffee. When it was gone, he would ache for it. Brood upon it. He ought to rip away now, whilst he still could recover. Find a new addiction. But he didn't. He couldn't. His fingers curled around her small hand and he felt the sheer _rightness_ of it entangle him.

He was fucked and he knew it.

"He would have never stopped coming if he had one breath in his body."

His free hand instinctively moved to gently stroke her hair from her eyes.

"Don't think of him," he instructed softly, "He can never lay word or hand on you again. He's in your past. You need to start building your future without him. And…you can say no, if you wish, but I think you need to see someone. A Doctor. Who can help you through the coming weeks and months as you adjust."

She tensed.

"A shrink?"

"A Doctor, Anastasia," he corrected gently. "I can arrange for you to see the best of the best. You have been through a trauma I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. It doesn't make you weak or pathetic to need help in recovering from it. You are an incredible woman to have withstood the things you have endured. But everyone has their breaking point."

His eyes lingered around their watery cocoon.

"Or did you just feel like a timeless shower in your t-shirt?"

The corners of her mouth twitched slightly as she digested his point. Despite herself, she sank deeper into his warm torso and felt the lightness of his safety blanket her. It was ill-advised. She knew it. But she couldn't possibly help it. Harry was kind and safe in the beginning, too. And so she had vowed to never trust another man, ever again. But this Christian Grey. Mr Grey. He was like water in the desert, a feast in the famine. She couldn't keep away. She didn't _want_ to keep away.

"I see your point."

His slight murmur of laughter was so beautiful that she twisted violently to look up at him. He tilted his head, amused, and raised a brow.

"Something caught your attention?"

Her voice held a note of wonder.

"You just don't seem like the laughing type."

His sudden and answering roar of laugher had her stiffening with shock. Her heart expanded with want as she watched his copper head tilt backwards and his handsome face light up like a clap of lightening in the inkiest sky. He looked, in that moment, like a carefree twenty-something with not a strain in the world. Her eyes widened. It was an amazingly good look on him and she knew, then and there, she had to see it again. And again and again. As his thumb roved over her jaw, his grey eyes were merry flames of a smouldering campfire.

"You know, people don't usually say things like that to me Miss Steele."

Despite herself and the trauma of the last few hours, a smile tugged at her lips.

"Maybe not to your face, Mr Grey."

His eyes widened and his acceding nod was humoured.

"That's a fair point. Which is strange, because I'm a very approachable, warm and funny guy. I love it when my employees tell me exactly what they don't like about me. I encourage it. It's the only way, don't you think?"

Her toothy grin was a morphine/fentanyl hybrid he would happily overdose on.

"I think you'd annihilate the first person who would dare."

His fingers roved over her plump limps as he smiled approvingly.

"You're a perceptive one."

She nuzzled into his wandering hand.

"Speaking of employees, technically speaking, I'm still your intern. A GEH minted minion. So where does this joint shower endeavour fit in your overall plan for entrepreneurial domination? Where do I fit into the mould?"

He bit his lip as he drank her in with a suddenly burning hunger.

"You don't."

She opened her mouth, her face falling, but he was quicker.

Her mouth was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. For him, the kiss was positively serene compared to his usual pursuits and his appreciation factor skyrocketed. For her, it was the first step in bricking up the gaping hole in her soul and she drank him in with an intensity that enraged her thudding pulse. When he broke away, his hand was gentle as it carded through her saturated mop of tangled hair.

"You've just broken the mould, baby."

…

TBC

A/N: Quick question – I was thinking of finishing this one off here, and starting a sequel i.e. _Fifty Shades Darker – Rewritten_ which would eventually lead to _Fifty Shades Freed – Rewritten._ Would that be of any interest to you all, or would you prefer to see this one end here in total completion?

A/N Edit: Thanks for all your feedback guys! I've decided to end this one here, and take up _Fifty Shades Darker - Rewritten_ in a while, after my other two remaining FSOG stories are a little nearer to completion. Eventually, I'll finish up with _Fifty Shades Freed - Rewritten._

Thanks so much for all your feedback on this story! I really, really appreciate it.

 _Inks x_

….


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